Category Archives: action

“Skyscraper” Posters, TV Spot, Featurette, and Trailers

action, thriller, , , , , , ,

Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Skyscraper follows former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and U.S. war veteran Will Sawyer, played by Dwayne Johnson. Sawyer’s job is to assess security for skyscrapers.

Skyscraper

He is on an assignment in China. The story is not clear if he is assessing the tallest, safest building in the world or just visiting when suddenly it’s ablaze—framed for causing it to catch fire.

Sawyer becomes a wanted man on the run. He must find those responsible for the fire to clear his name. At the same time, he has to figure out someway how to rescue his family trapped inside the building above the fire line.

The movie is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, now you can unless you’ve seen it and want to see it again.

Universal Pictures released the movie as a 3D action-thriller. The list of producers is long, and they are all connected to making action-thrillers like San Andreas, Pirates of the Caribbean series, and Kong: Skull Island.

The third movie trailer tells more about the story, and the intensity of the circumstances Johnson’s character confronts.

The featurette offers a bit more information about Johnson’s character while learning more about the special effects.

The second trailer explains the storyline more, and we see more action and stunts happening in the movie.

Here is the trailer, which pretty much tells you the story.  It looks like a lot of action and CGI.

Here is the TV Spot. The poster shows a man leaping from one skyscraper to the next. So, it looks pretty action-packed.  Also, starring with Johnson is Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Noah Taylor, Roland Møller, Byron Mann, Pablo Schreiber, and Hannah Quinlivan.

“Game Night” Trailer

action, comedy, ,

Co-directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Game Night is a hilarious movie that follows a group of friends with a standard get-together for game nights. Games consist of charades, board games or whatever the host provides. The group finds themselves trying to solve a murder mystery after one of the hosts, played by Kyle Chandler, takes the game up a notch. The game becomes real, and it is just not for fun anymore.

Writer Mark Perez crafts a brilliant, clever story that takes the cat-and-mouse theme to a new level. Rachal Adams and Jason Bateman are still the show in the movie trailer. I recommend you watch it. You’ll have great laughs, and it will lift your spirits.

Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible: Fallout” Posters, Trailers, TV Spot, Featurettes

action, adventure, legend, sequels, , , ,

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible—Fallout follows Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt once again. The story is about how the best intentions often come back to haunt you.

The movie finds Hunt and his IMF team, played by Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames, along with some familiar allies, played by Rebecca Ferguson and Michelle Monaghan, in a race against time after a mission gone wrong.

Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast, and filmmaker McQuarrie returns to direct his second Mission: Impossible movie.

The next poster is called “Sunburst.” The colors and characters let us know we are in for an adventure.

The poster says it all. Certainly, Ethan Hunt will work with his team to save the world from malevolence. The stellar cast is phenomenal, something to look forward to seeing in the movie theater.

The featurette talks about Cruise’s stunts and shows footage we haven’t seen yet.

The following trailer tells us about the story, filled with action, Tom Cruise stunts, and the bad guys.

I watched Top Gun the other night. Tom Cruise made that movie great. He is such a brilliant actor—and cute, too! Here, he is performing another impossible stunt.

Aerial Featurette is fantastic, with Tom Cruise flying the helicopter and doing spirals.

The movie trailer is fantastic, pure entertainment.

The TV Spot is shorter but fine.

“The Hurricane Heist” Trailers, Superbowl TV Spot, Blu-ray/DVD

action, ,

Directed by Rob  Cohn, who brought us The Fast and Furious, The Hurricane Heist follows treasury agent Casy, played by Maggie Grace, as she works with Will, played by Toby Kebbell and his former Marine brother, played by Ryan Kwanten,  to survive a Category 5 hurricane and stop a  team of tech masterminds from stealing $600 million making it the biggest heist ever achieved.

The Blu-ray and DVD hit the streets. If you haven’t seen it yet, now is your chance.

The Blu-ray/DVD special features include deleted scenes, “The Eye of the Storm” featurette, “Hollywood Heist: A Conversation with Rob Cohen” featurette, VFX reel, and audio commentary with director Rob Cohen.

The Superbowl TV Spot just came out for everyone to see. The movie looks intense in this ad.

The movie trailer is intense but that is all the visuals I have right now.

“Breaking In” Trailer, Movie and Poster

action, thriller, , , , , , ,

Directed by James McTeigue, Breaking In follows actress Gabrielle Union as she plays a woman who will stop at nothing to rescue her two children being held hostage in a house designed with impenetrable security.

No trap, trick and especially no man inside can match a mother with a mission when she is determined to breaking in.

The movie also stars Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Ajiona Alexus, Levi Meaden, Jason George, Seth Karr,  and Christa Miller.

I like these movie clips because they show how tough these women can be. You go, girls!

The trailer pretty much tells the story, but Union looks good and is one demanding mother.

“Beirut” Poster, Featurette,Trailer, and Clip

action, drama, thriller,

Directed by Brad Anderson and written by Tony Gilroy, Beirut follows a former US diplomat Mason Skiles, played by Jon Hamm, CIA operatives Sandy Crowder and Donald Gaines, played by Rosamund Pike and Dean Norris. Caught in the crossfires of civil war, they must send the former U.S. diplomat to Beirut to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind.

The first part of the story takes place in 1972, where Skiles, his wife and hopefully to adopted 13-year old Lebanese orphan, played by Yoau Saian Rosenberg are having a cocktail party in there home. Mason’s best friend, CIA Agent Cal Riley, played by Mark Pellegrino, arrives and seconds later terrorists attack the party with tragic results.

Ten years later and now an alcoholic working as a mediator for labor disputes in Boston, Mason gets approached by a stranger in a bar. He hands him a passport, cash, and a plane ticket along with an urgent invitation from mutual “friends” that he travel to Beirut. Grudgingly, Mason arrives in Beirut only to find that the formerly picturesque city on the sea has become a violence-ridden warzone. Mason soon discovers the real reason he’s been called back. CIA and Embassy officials Donald Gaines, Gary Ruzak, played by Shea Whigham, and Ambassador Frank Whalen, played by Larry Pine explain that terrorists have kidnapped a CIA agent. The offer Mason a mission. He negotiates a swap for the release of terrorist leader Abu Rajal, played by Hicham Ouraqa, believed to be imprisoned by Israeli secret police, in exchange for the American. The story unfolds with intrigue and competing agendas.

Under the helm of Anderson is a tight spring action thriller
You might recognize Gilroy’s name as the writer behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Before the Star Wars franchise was resurrected, he formulated his fictional script around facts on the ground including the 1984 kidnapping of CIA Station Chief William Buckley. “For me, that was very much the model for what would happen if a high-level CIA officer were kidnapped,” Gilroy says. “Buckley’s body actually turned up just as I was finishing the script and there was a lot of reporting about that case that I drew on. It was all very garish and gothic and horrifying and dramatic.”

Beirut’s central character prefigured the flawed heroes that would later anchor some of Gilroy’s best-known works. “Mason was the beginning of my fascination with characters in need of redemption, which is also true for Jason Bourne and Michael Clayton,” Gilroy says. “With Beirut, I was interested in writing about people trapped inside a political situation, while at the same time Mason is forced to confront his past and his own weakness.”
After Gilroy finished his script in 1992, numerous A-list actors and directors circled the project, known at the time as High Wire Act. It was just too hot to handle because of the authenticity of the story.

Anderson says related to the script as a great story that was well written. “I was very taken by the world of Tony’s story. I frankly didn’t know very much about Beirut, so for me, it was more the character elements that drew me in. I was fascinated with Mason as this tortured soul who’s trying to redeem himself by saving his friend. That’s a very classic dramatic sensibility.”

The featurette, trailer and clip offer an excellent idea of how good this movie is put together.

X-Men: “Dark Phoenix” Trailers, Poster, Featurettes, and Images

action, adventure, based on a book, fantasy, science fiction, sequels, , , ,
Sophie Turner stars as Jean Grey.

Twentieth Century Fox’s next X-Men movie, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, is directed by Simon Kinberg, who has written quite a few of the franchise movies, including this one.

The movie stars James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, and Jessica Chastain as Smith.

Blu-ray, DVD, and digital streaming are available. The bonus features include a hilarious but important one-on-one “How to Fly Your Jet to Space” lesson in the Special Features section.  You get hours of extensive special features and behind-the-scenes insights from Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker, delving into everything it took to bring the movie to the screen. 

New faces and a new director make for a promising movie.  Kinberg is favorably familiar with the story that follows Jean Grey, played by Turner, who begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. The second trailer starts off with Grey being with her mother and father. It’s a happy moment that turns to destruction and death.

The story is an extended version of the fictional Marvel Comics series penned by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Dave Cockrum and John Bryne.

The X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world. That shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Don’t you think?

Still, they share their existence as unique beings who are outcasts because they don’t fit in with the status quo.  It will be interesting to see how the X-Men handle their rogue mutant – Dark Phoenix.

The most recent poster shows all the characters in the movie. The imagery indicates the influence Dark Phoenix has on all of them. She is a true anti-hero.

The next trailer tells us a huge spoiler. It’s not blunt but obvious. Jean is an out-of-control killing machine. The green screen and CGI effects are unbelievable. They mesmerized me throughout the trailer – some true sound editing and mixing worth experiencing in the movie theater. The box office draw is diehard fans.

It looks like she’s turned into a bad girl. The trailer explains how it happens and when it happens. The X-men want to kill her, so they can protect themselves and society. The special effects (CGI) looks pretty good, showing us all that is happening. It appears the Dark Phoenix is in a chaotic world all her own.

The next two featurettes are keepers. Each stands out as a unique reason for telling the story of the Dark Phoenix. One featurette gives us hope and introduces us to the writer and editor of the comic book series – Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson.

The next featurette shows us the history of the X-Men, though some are women. We learn that the Dark Phoenix is a huge battle for them, and the outcome is what we all want to know.

“Den of Thieves” Trailer, Movie Clips from Blu-ray/DVD

action, thriller

Directed by Christian Gudegast, Den of Thieves stars Gerard Butler as corrupted cop Nick  Flanagan. The movie follows Flanagan as he and an elite group of crooks try to steal 120 million dollars from the Los Angeles Federal Reserve.

The movie looks like a typical shoot-them-up with the bad guys against the good guys for the common good of making things go right. The film also stars Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Evan Jones, Dawn Olivieri, Mo McRae, and UFC Featherweight Champion Max Holloway.

There are some awesome movie clips after you scroll down below the movie trailer.

This is how a shootout scene is filmed.

The interviews with Gerard Butler and Christian Gudegast tell us about the story.

“Sicario 2: Soldado” Trailers, Featurette, and Poster

action, sequels, ,

Directed by Stefano Sollima, Sicario 2: Soldado follows the drug war on the US-Mexico border, which has escalated as the cartels have trafficked terrorists across the US border. Federal agent Matt Graver re-teams with the mercurial Alejandro to fight the war. The movie stars Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, and Matthew Modine. 

The featurette explains the movie and how the title relates to the storyline.

The third trailer shows more of what is going on in the story. It’s not as long, but it’s good.

The movie trailer tells more about the movie. My first thought was that he was trying to save the girl, which was intense.

I like the original movie with Emly Blunt, though the ending was empty with platitudes. Still, Blunt did a great job. I will continue to enjoy her films.

“Act of Violence” Trailer

action, thriller

Directed by Brett Donowho, Acts of Violence follows three Midwestern brothers, a crime lord, played by Cole Hauser, and an incorruptible cop, played by Bruce Willis, are on a deadly collision course when the youngest brother’s fiancée is kidnapped by human traffickers.

The story is simple, they have to save her, the MacGregor boys call on their military training – and the strength of family – to fight the most important battle of their lives.   Also, starring is Sophia Bush as Detective Brooke Baker.