The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Release date(s) : May 22, 2009(Cannes Film Festival)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a 2009 fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. The film follows the leader of a traveling theater troupe who, having made a deal with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations.

Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, and Tom Waits star in the film, though Ledger's death one-third of the way through filming caused production to be temporarily suspended. Ledger's role was recast with Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell portraying transformations of Ledger's character Tony as he travels through a dream world.

Doctor Parnassus' (Christopher Plummer) theatre troupe, which includes sleight of hand expert Anton (Andrew Garfield), dwarf Percy (Verne Troyer), and Parnassus' daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), performs outside a pub in London. A drunkard barges onstage, crashing through a stage mirror. He is thrown into a journey of the imagination that culminates in his being offered a choice between enlightenment and a pub. After he enters the pub, it explodes. Parnassus says he has lost another one to Mr. Nick (Tom Waits).

Mr. Nick reminds Parnassus that in three days Valentina will turn 16, at which point her soul will be his. As the troupe crosses a bridge, Anton spies someone hanging beneath it. They rescue the hanging man (Heath Ledger), who spits out a golden pipe when revived. Claiming to have amnesia, the man joins the troupe as a barker. Parnassus becomes despondent over the impending loss of his daughter. Mr. Nick visits Parnassus, revealing that the hanging man is a disgraced philanthropist named Tony. He offers Parnassus a wager: Valentina can stay with whoever wins five souls first.

Directed by
Terry Gilliam

Produced by
Samuel Hadida
Amy Gilliam
William Vince
Terry Gilliam

Written by
Terry Gilliam
Charles McKeown

Starring
Heath Ledger
Christopher Plummer
Verne Troyer
Lily Cole
Andrew Garfield
Tom Waits
Johnny Depp
Colin Farrell
Jude Law

Cop Out

Release date(s) : February 26, 2010

Jimmy and Paul (Willis and Morgan), two suspended cops working for the NYPD, are celebrating their ninth year as partners. Jimmy's daughter Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg) is getting married, and the price for the wedding is close to fifty thousand dollars. Paul is worried that his wife is cheating on him, so he sets up a video camera in a teddy bear. While Jimmy is selling a 1952 Andy Pafko baseball card to pay for the wedding, Paul is calling his wife. However, Jimmy is robbed by Dave (Sean William Scott), who steals his card and Paul's favorite gun. They find out that Dave is going to rob a house that night, so they stake out the house to retrieve the card and gun. Jimmy arrests Dave and discovers he has sold the card and gun for drugs.

Directed by
Kevin Smith

Produced by
Marc E. Platt
Polly Johnsen
Michael Tadross

Written by
Mark Cullen
Robb Cullen

Starring
Bruce Willis
Tracy Morgan
Adam Brody
Kevin Pollak
Guillermo Diaz
Seann William Scott

Brooklyn Finest

Release date(s) : March 5, 2010

The film takes place within the notoriously rough Brownsville section of Brooklyn and especially within the Van Dyke housing projects in the NYPD's sixty-fifth precinct. Three policemen struggle with the sometimes fine line between right and wrong.

The opening scene shows two men sitting in a parked car having a conversation, the man in the drivers seat, Carlo (Vincent D'Onofrio) is then shot unexpectedly in the face by the passenger (revealed to be Sal) who then robs Carlo and runs off.

Detective Salvatore "Sal" Procida (Ethan Hawke), desperate for money to feed and house his rapidly growing family, has started pocketing the money left on the table during drug raids. Deeply religious, he finds that he's in the bad place of trying to reconcile his misdeeds with his needs. The mold in the walls of his home is making his wife (Lili Taylor) ill and endangering the life of his unborn twins. And the down payment on his coveted new, bigger house is past due.

Officer Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is a week from retirement after twenty-two years of less-than-exemplary service to the force when he's assigned to oversee rookies in the tough neighborhoods. His life in shambles, Eddie is barely hanging on, swilling whiskey in the morning to get out of bed. His only friend is the prostitute he frequents.

Detective Clarence "Tango" Butler (Don Cheadle) is an undercover cop working the drug beat. But he tires of the kind of attention that a black man in a black car attracts, and he's been begging for a promotion and a desk job for years. He's finally offered a way out and it means betraying a close friend Caz, a known criminal (Wesley Snipes) recently released from federal prison.

Federal Agent Smith (Ellen Barkin) instructs Tango to set-up the drug deal that will assure Caz's arrest and return to federal prison. Eddie's first rookie assignment (Logan Marshall-Green) gets himself killed on his second day on the force when he requests to be assigned to work with another officer. Sal's wife goes into the hospital after an asthma attack brought on by the mold in their home. Eddie's second rookie assignment (Jesse Williams) accidentally shoots near a petty drug-dealer leaving the young man deaf and the NYPD facing a public relations nightmare.

Directed by
Antoine Fuqua

Produced by
Basil Iwanyk
John Langley
John Thompson
Elie Cohn

Written by
Michael C. Martin

Starring
Richard Gere
Don Cheadle
Ethan Hawke
Wesley Snipes

Green Zone

Release date(s) : March 12, 2010

General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), in hiding in Baghdad, is meeting with his aides talking about the invasion of Iraq. Many of his aides propose fighting other Iraqi forces and American forces, however Al-Rawi suggests that they remain where they are and wait until the Americans arrive and perhaps make the Iraqi army an offer to join their forces (the earlier arrival of Al-Rawi, senior in the Iraqi government, is noticed by an an Iraqi we will come to know as Freddie).

Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his squad investigate a warehouse, believed to be holding Weapons of Mass Destruction. After encounters with a sniper and scanning the warehouse for radioactive activity, they find that the warehouse is empty, with the exception of an old piece of mechanical equipment. After regrouping with his squad, Roy Miller starts to question the intel given to him. At a debriefing, Miller brings up the point that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate and anonymous, stating that on his last three attempts to find WMDs, his team had come up with nothing. High-ranking officials quickly debunk Miller's theory about the intelligence being false.

Directed by
Paul Greengrass

Produced by
Tim Bevan
Eric Fellner
Lloyd Levin
Paul Greengrass

Written by
Brian Helgeland
Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Book)

Starring
Matt Damon
Greg Kinnear
Brendan Gleeson
Amy Ryan
Khalid Abdalla
Jason Isaacs
Yigal Naor

Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Release date(s) : February 11, 2010 (2010-02-11)

At the top of the Empire State Building, Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) meets with Zeus (Sean Bean), who comments that the storm clouds have no lightning and that his master bolt has been stolen. He blames Poseidon's son for the theft. Despite Poseidon's claims of his son's innocence, Zeus gives Poseidon 14 days to return it, lest war break out.

During a field trip to an exhibition of Greek and Roman art, teenager Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), is lured away from the crowd by a Fury disguised as his substitute English teacher, who then attacks him, questioning him about the lightning bolt. The incredulous Percy, who has no knowledge of this, is rescued by his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan). After dispatching the Fury, Brunner gives Percy a magical pen. On Brunner's instruction, Percy's best friend, Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), takes Percy to a training camp for demigods, Camp Half-Blood, along with Percy's mother, Sally Jackson (Catherine Keener). During their trip to the camp, Percy attempts to learn about his biological father from Sally, but they are attacked by a Minotaur. Although Percy and Grover, who is revealed to be a satyr, make it to the camp, its defenses prohibit entrance to Sally, who is captured by the Minotaur, and disappears before Percy. Percy engages the Minotaur with the magical pen, which turns into a sword named Riptide, eventually killing the creature with one of its horns.

Alice in Wonderland

Release date(s) : February 25, 2010 -(London premiere)

Alice Kingsley, 19, attends a party at a Victorian estate shortly after the death of her beloved father. Learning that the party is actually an engagement party to wed her into the family of her father's friend and current owner of his trading business, Alice spots a White Rabbit wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch. In shock and confusion, she runs off into a maze and follows the White Rabbit through it. She eventually tumbles down a rabbit hole into Underland, learning that the White Rabbit has been searching for "The Alice" who is the only one that can slay the Jabberwocky, a dragon who terrorizes the inhabitants of Underland under the rule of the Red Queen.

Cast:
Mia Wasikowska
Johnny Depp
Anne Hathaway
Helena Bonham Carter
Crispin Glover
Michael Sheen
Stephen Fry