Movies in Theaters This Friday, April 19, 2013: Oblivion, Home Run, and More
Most of the time studios are competing against each other for the national audience’s attention. However, it appears everyone has bowed down to Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion. Starring Tom Cruise, the film takes place in the apocalyptic near-future in a time where Earth has been abandoned.
On the limited agenda is Ain’t in it for my Health: A Film About Levon Helm, Errors of the Human Body, Filly Brown, In the House, Oconomowoc, and Unmade in China.
A noteworthy limited release is Home Run. Although 42 released last weekend, another baseball movie will be providing some competition.
The other release is The Lords of Salem, the newest from musician/filmmaker Rob Zombie. The movie is unrelated to his song (of the same name) and is a horror film about a woman reliving past traumas through music.
As always, have a great weekend!
Tom Cruise stars in Oblivion, an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the director of TRON: Legacy and the producer of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man’s confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. Living and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
Ain’t in it for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm
With unprecedented access to Levon Helm, one of rock’s greatest musicians, Jacob Hatley has documented a powerful, sad, and yet still inspirational story as Helm shows that his passion for music has not faded at all, despite demons and extremely difficult times that would likely have squashed the spirit of most.Filmed during the final years of his life, Ain’t In It For My Health sees Helm finding himself in the spotlight for the first time in a quarter century, as a Grammy nomination and ever-growing audiences force him to confront the dark times that have haunted him since The Band’s demise: throat cancer, bankruptcy, drug addiction and the tragic loss of band mates Richard Manuel and Rick Danko. Win or lose, Levon was an artist who refused to go quietly into the night.
The feature film Errors of the Human Body is a thought provoking psychological thriller and gripping mystery that follows the story of Geoffrey Burton, a scientist on a journey of both startling and frightening discovery, set within the mysterious world of genetic engineering.
The story takes place in Dresden and stars Germany’s Karoline Herfurth (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The Reader and We are the Night), Iceland’s Tomas Lemarquis (Noi the Albino, Painless, Snow Piercer), Rik Mayall (The Young Ones) and Canada’s rising star, Michael Eklund (The Divide, FRINGE, ALCATRAZ) Written by Eron Sheean and Shane Danielsen & Directed by Eron Sheean. Produced by Instinctive Film and High5Films.
FILLY BROWN is an inspiring and gritty portrait of a young artist striving to find her voice and seize her dreams without compromise. Majo Tonorio, aka, “Filly Brown” is a young, raw hip-hop artist from Los Angeles who spits rhymes from the heart. With a mother in prison and a father struggling to provide for his daughters, Majo knows that a record contract could be her family’s ticket out. But when a record producer offers her a shot at stardom, she is suddenly faced with the prospect of losing who she is as an artist, as well as the friends who helped her reach the cusp of success. Directed by Youssef Delara and Michael Olmos, FILLY BROWN is propelled by an exceptional cast featuring Lou Diamond Phillips, Edward James Olmos and the legendary Jenni Rivera in her final on-screen performance. Fueled by a fierce hip-hop score, FILLY BROWN heralds the arrival of Gina Rodriguez in the electrifying title role.
Baseball all-star Cory Brand knows what it takes to win in the big leagues. But off the field, with memories of his past haunting him, his life is spiraling out of control.
Hoping to save her client’s career and reputation after a DUI and a team suspension, Cory’s agent sends him back to the small town where he grew up. Forced to coach the local youth baseball team and spend eight weeks in the only recovery program in town, Cory can’t wait to return to his old life as quickly as possible.
As his young players help him experience the joy of the game, Cory discovers his need to find freedom from his past and hope for his future … and win back the love he left behind. With this unexpected second chance, Cory finds himself on a powerful journey of transformation and redemption.
Based on thousands of true stories, HOME RUN is a powerful reminder that with God, it’s never too late … freedom is possible.
A boy of 16 wants to get in the house of one of his classmates to glean inspiration for his writing assignments.
Impressed with this unusual and gifted student, his teacher rediscovers a taste for teaching, but the intrusion sparks a series of uncontrollable events.
From the singular mind of horror maestro Rob Zombie comes a chilling plunge into a nightmare world where evil runs in the blood.
“The Lords of Salem” tells the tale of Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie), a radio station DJ living in Salem, Massachusetts, who receives a strange wooden box containing a record, a “gift from the Lords.” Heidi listens, and the bizarre sounds within the grooves immediately trigger flashbacks of the town’s violent past. Is Heidi going mad, or are the “Lords of Salem” returning for revenge on modern-day Salem?
OCONOMOWOC is an absurd comedy about Lonnie Washington, a confused adult who moves back in with his boozing mother and reluctantly teams up with his friend’s mishandled t-shirt business in hopes of finding a little direction.
Unmade in China follows the experience of a Los Angeles filmmaker who finds himself in Xiamen, China trying to direct a thriller, in Chinese, using a translator. He soon discovers that the old adage of making a film three times – in the writing, shooting, and editing – is in fact the opposite in China, where his film is “unmade” three times – in the writing, shooting, and editing – with each subsequent stage of the process even more excruciating and devastating than the one that came before it.
Determined however to make his film happen, even under the most adverse conditions, the eager filmmaker can’t even begin to imagine the complications of making a government sanctioned film in Communist China.
At first compromises are decorously made and he must ‘sell’ himself on the fact that these changes are mandated by cultural imperatives or differences delineating east and west. But this notion of civil disparity is quickly disabused as lead actors are clandestinely recast in the middle of the night. And money is often withheld, as the filmmaker’s script is literally hijacked and rewritten without consultation. At length the filmmaker takes a stand and boycotts the shoot, but even this is short lived.
Fortunately, the Los Angeles filmmaker is accompanied for most of his Sino-Sisyphean journey by fellow documentarian and close friend, Tanner King Barklow (producer on Outrage and Invisible War) who intimately records the absurd lunacy that prevails. What results is an hilarious documentary of an overeager American striving to make art in a Communist regime that is itself unsure of its identity.
Aside from a fun and frivolous tale that documents the trials and tribulations of an Angeleno making a film in China, this is also a cautionary tale, redolent with political resonance, about what compromises an artist suffers in order to make their work, and the measures he or she must take in order to sometimes right a wrong.
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