The once prosperous land of Kumandra was attacked, long ago, by the Druun, evil spirits that turn people and dragons into stone. The last dragon, Sisu, created the Dragon Orb to banish the Druun, then vanished. The people of Kumandra fought over the Orb and divided into tribes: Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon and Tail. Centuries later, Chief Benja (Kim) of the Heart tribe gathers the leaders of the five tribes for a peace conference, but his young daughter Raya reveals the location of the Orb to Princess Namaari of the Fang tribe, who tries to steal it. In the ensuing clash, the Orb is broken and the Druun return, scattering the people and turning many, including Benja, to stone.
Following a series of disasters caused by an energy surge from space, astronaut Major Roy McBride (Pitt) is assigned to travel to Mars and try to contact his father, Clifford (Jones), whose research mission to Neptune in search of extraterrestrial life may be the source of the ongoing surges.
Directed by Michael Engler Starring Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Allen Leech, Jim Carter, Robert James-Collier, Phyllis Logan, Brendan Coyle, Joanne Froggatt, Lesley Nichol, Kevin Doyle, Sophie McShera, Raquel Cassidy, Michael C. Fox, Matthew Goode, Harry Hadden-Paton, Geraldine James, Simon Jones, Max Brown, Tuppence Middleton, Stephen Campbell-Moore, David Haig and Imelda Staunton
Six seasons…
Downton Abbey was a wildly successful and critically-acclaimed British period drama, created by Julian Fellowes and following the fortunes of the family of the Crawley family, hereditary Earls of Grantham, and their domestic staff between 1912 and 1925, somewhat in the style of the earlier hit Upstairs, Downstairs. The current Earl, Robert Crawley (Bonneville), and his wife Cora (McGovern) – an American heiress – had three daughters – Mary (Dockery), the fabulous one, Edith (Carmichael), the plain one, and Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay), the socially conscious one – and no sons, leading to the co-option into the family of heir presumptive Matthew (Dan Stevens), an upper-middle class solicitor and his mother, Isobel (Wilton). After much humming and hahing and a World War, Mary married Matthew. Sibyl married the Irish Republican chauffeur, Tom (Leech), while Edith had a series of desperately tragic romances. Sibyl and Matthew both died in childbirth (men can do this in Downton, as a result of what I assume to be a family curse which means that every time a baby is born, someone dies,) and Mary later married the dashing Henry Talbot (Goode) after a series of flings, and Edith finally got her happy ending with Bertie Pelham (Hadden-Paton), Marquess of Hexham.
Below stairs, the Butler Carson (Carter) and housekeeper Mrs Hughes (Logan) ran herd on a rotating staff of footmen and maids, including slowly-reforming bastard and future under-butler Barrow (James-Collier) and nice new boy Andy (Fox), older footman Moseley (Doyle) and maid Baxter (Cassidy), will-they-won’t-they personal servants Bates (Coyle), Grantham’s valet, and Anna (Froggatt), Lady Mary’s maid, and the cook Mrs Patmore (Nicol) and her long-suffering, socially-ambitious kitchen maid Daisy (McShera). Bates and Anna got married after being the dumping ground for about 70% of the Abbey’s melodrama (and a rape subplot, because that was apparently necessary,) and Barrow became Butler when Carson retired due to ill-health.
By the final Christmas special, all ended happily, and all under the gimlet gaze of Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Smith), she of the acid tongue and the silent ‘bitch’.
…and a movie
Flash forward a mere four years, and they made a movie, at which point half the country went absolutely mad for fear that their favourite happy ending would be scotched, that Barrow would revert to type, or that Edith would be plunged back into the misery she was left in when her past fiance left her pregnant after being murdered by the SA in the Beer Hall Putsch.
Directed by Wes Ball Starring Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen, Walton Goggins, Ki Hong Lee, Barry Pepper, Will Poulter, Patricia Clarkson and Rosa Salazar
Following Teresa’s (Scodelario) betrayal in The Scorch Trials, Thomas (O’Brien) and Newt (Brodie-Sangster) are intent on rescuing their comrade Minho (Lee), with the help of survivalists Jorge (Esposito) and Brenda (Salazar) and revolutionary Vince (Pepper). WCKD are determined to hold onto Minho, however, as Teresa and her mentor Ava (Clarkson) believe that his blood holds the key to a cure which could save the Last City from the Flare virus.
Directed by Matteo Garrone Starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones and John C. Reilly
Once upon a time, there was a Queen (Hayek) who could not bear a child. At the advice of a necromancer, the Queen’s husband (Reilly) slays a sea monster. The King is also killed, but the Queen eats the heart of the monster and is instantly pregnant. She and the virgin kitchen maid who cooks the heart give birth to identical boys even before the King’s funeral, attended by two other monarchs: a King (Cassel) whose appetites know no restraint, and another King (Jones) with a beloved daughter.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
Directed by Burr Steers Starring Lily James, Sam Riley and Jack Huston
In a Regency era Britain beset by hordes of the undead, Elizabeth Bennett (James) and her sisters have been trained in the martial arts to repel the zombie horde from their family estate. When the wealthy Mr Bingley (Douglas Booth) buys nearby Netherfield Hall – recently vacated after an outbreak of zombism at a wist party – Mrs Bennett (Sally Phillips) sees a chance to begin marrying her daughters out of what she sees as an undesirable warrior lifestyle. Jane (Bella Heathcoat) soon falls in with Mr Bingley, but Lizzie falls into an altogether more confrontational relationship with Bingley’s friend, professional zombie killer, Colonel Darcy (Riley).
Directed by Wes Ball Starring Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Rose Salazar, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Jacob Lofland, Aiden Gillen and Giancarlo Esposito
Thomas (O’Brien) and the other Gladers are brought to a staging area in a desert known as ‘the Scorch’, where Theresa (Scodelario) is taken away an the rest are given food and bunks. Thomas is uneasy, however, and together with a boy named Aris (Lofland) from another Maze, uncovers the links between their benefactor Janson (Gillen) and WCKD, forcing the group to go on the run once more, rather than be ‘harvested’.
Not ‘John Carter of Mars’. Who cares about Mars? People are going to come to this film for John Carter.
“Lost in this world, found in another”
Directed by Andrew Stanton Starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Willem Dafoe
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Confederate Captain John Carter (Kitsch) has devoted his life to misanthropy and the quest for mythical treasure. A pushy cavalry recruiter and a chance encounter lead him to Barsoom, the dying planet Mars, where he discovers strange powers and perhaps a new direction in life.
Who’s the dark prince of Wallachia who’s a death machine with all the Turks?
“Every Bloodline Has a Beginning” or “The Legend is Born”
Directed by Gary Shaw Starring Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon and Charles Dance
After being conscripted to fight in the Ottoman army alongside a thousand other Transylvanian youths, Vlad (Evans), also known as the Impaler and the Son of the Dragon, rules his domain in peace. When Sultan Mehmed (Cooper) demands more boy soldiers for his army, and Vlad’s son as a hostage. For the sake of peace he is prepared to go along with it, but then a Turkish officer calls him a pussy, so he goes to a monstrous being in the mountains (Dance), becomes a vampire and embarks on a rampage of destruction which will ultimately lead him down the road to becoming the legend that is Dracula. Continue reading Dracula Untold (2014)→
The Bad Movie Marathon 