January Movies - page 2

11 months ago 02nd Dec 10:29

16th January

The big release this week sees Mickey Rourke resurrect his career in one swoop as his performance in The Wrestler gained huge support on the festival circuit.

Back in the late '80s, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centres around New Jersey.

However, a heart attack forces him into retirement. As his sense of identity starts to slip away, he begins to evaluate the state of his life -- trying to reconnect with his daughter, and strikes up a blossoming romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei).

Yet all this cannot compare to the allure of the ring and passion for his art, which threatens to pull Randy "The Ram" back into his world of wrestling.

For his performance Rourke is expected to pick up a Best Actor nod and could, possibly, be the early front runner for the award.

23rd January

After being pushed back and pushed back the release of Valkyrie is finally here as Tom Cruise takes on the role of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Bryan Singer's drama.

In a country in the grips of evil, in a police state where every move is being watched in a world where justice and honour have been subverted, a group of men hidden inside the highest reaches of power decide to take action.

A proud military man, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is a loyal officer who serves his country all the while hoping that someone will find a way to stop Hitler before Europe and Germany are destroyed. Realizing that time is running out, he decides that he must take action himself and joins the German resistance.

Armed with a cunning strategy to use Hitler’s own emergency plan known as Operation Valkyrie these men plot to assassinate the dictator and overthrow his Nazi government from the inside. With everything in place, with the future of the world, the fate of millions and the lives of his wife and children hanging in the balance, von Stauffenberg is thrust from being one of many who oppose Hitler to the one who must kill Hitler himself.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is also another movie that is gaining some Oscar hype, a film which brings together Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

Adapted from the 1920's story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: A man, like any of use, who is unable to stop time.

The film follow his story set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918, into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as an man's can be.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a grand tale if a not so ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, the love he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw