Ratatouille (2007)
February 5th, 2010
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A rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely - and certainly unwanted - visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy’s passion for cooking soon sets into motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.
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Devastated upon receiving the news that her husband has been killed in a tragic car accident, a woman wakes up to find him still very much alive as she begins to slip into a confusing world where the past and the future become increasingly difficult to distinguish. Linda Hanson (Sandra_Bullock) was an average housewife with a loving family, but when a policeman comes knocking on her door with news that her husband, Jim (Julian McMahon), was involved in a fatal car accident, Linda’s world slowly begins to unravel. While her grief is at first overwhelming, Linda assumes that the whole thing was nothing more than a vivid dream when she wakes to find her family still very much intact. With each passing day, however, Linda’s reality shifts and her circumstances grow increasingly surreal; one day Jim is dead and the next he is right there by her side. As her investigation leaves her convinced that her husband’s death wasn’t a dream and that her picture-perfect life may not have been quite as flawless as she thought, Linda embarks on a mind-bending journey to prevent her grim premonition from becoming a reality. Now, in order to save the man she loves, Linda will have to piece together a perplexing mystery that seems to span two separate planes of reality.
The War of the Ring reaches its climax as the dark lord Sauron sets his sights on Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor. The members of the fellowship in Rohan are warned of the impending attack when Pippin cannot resist looking into Saruman’s palantir and is briefly contacted by the dark lord. King Theoden is too proud to send his men to help without being asked, so Gandalf and Pippin ride to Minas Tirith to see that this request is sent. They meet opposition there from Denethor, steward of the city and father of Faramir and the late Boromir. Denethor’s family has acted as temporary guardians of Gondor for centuries until a member of the true line of kings returns. This member is none other than Aragorn, who must overcome his own self-doubt before he can take on the role he was destined to fulfill. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam continue to carry the One Ring towards Mordor, guided by Gollum. What they don’t know is that Gollum is leading them into a trap so that he can reclaim the Ring for himself. Though Sam suspects his deceit, Frodo is starting to be corrupted by the Ring’s power and the mistrust of Sam this causes is fully exploited by Gollum. The only way good can prevail in this contest is if the Ring is destroyed, an event that is becoming harder every minute for Frodo to achieve. The fate of every living creature in Middle Earth will be decided once and for all as the Quest of the Ringbearer reaches its climax.
The Fellowship has been broken. Boromir is dead, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee have gone to Mordor alone to destroy the One Ring, Merry and Pippin have been captured by the Uruk-hai, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli have made friends of the Rohan, a race of humans that are in the path of the upcoming war, led by its aging king, Théoden. The two towers between Mordor and Isengard, Barad-dúr and Orthanc, have united in their lust for destruction. The corrupt wizard Saruman, under the power of the Dark Lord Sauron, and his slimy assistant, Gríma Wormtongue, have created a grand Uruk-hai army bent on the destruction of Man and Middle-earth. The rebellion against Sauron is building up and will be led by Gandalf the White, who was thought to be dead after the Balrog captured him. One of the Ring’s original bearers, the creature Gollum, has tracked Frodo and Sam down in search of his ‘precious’, but is captured by the Hobbits and used as a way to lead them to Mt. Doom. The War of the Ring has now begun..
New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson fulfills his lifelong dream of transforming author J.R.R. Tolkien’s best-selling fantasy epic into a three-part motion picture that begins with this holiday 2001 release. Elijah Wood stars as Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit resident of the medieval “Middle-earth” who discovers that a ring bequeathed to him by beloved relative and benefactor Bilbo (Ian Holm) is in fact the “One Ring,” a device that will allow its master to manipulate dark powers and enslave the world. Frodo is charged by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to return the ring to Mount Doom, the evil site where it was forged millennia ago and the only place where it can be destroyed. Accompanying Frodo is a fellowship of eight others: his Hobbit friends Sam (Sean Astin), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), and Pippin (Billy Boyd); plus Gandalf; the human warriors Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean); Elf archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom); and Dwarf soldier Gimli (John Rhys-Davies). The band’s odyssey to the dreaded land of Mordor, where Mount Doom lies, takes them through the Elfish domain of Rivendell and the forest of Lothlorien, where they receive aid and comfort from the Elf princess Arwen (Liv Tyler), her father, Elrond (Hugo Weaving), and Queen Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). In pursuit of the travelers and their ring are Saruman (Christopher Lee) — a traitorous wizard and kin, of sorts, to Gandalf — and the Dark Riders, under the control of the evil, mysterious Sauron (Sala Baker). The Fellowship must also do battle with a troll, flying spies, Orcs, and other deadly obstacles both natural and otherwise as they draw closer to Mordor. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) was filmed in Jackson’s native New Zealand, closely followed by its pair of sequels, The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003).
After the departure of Rube Sofer, a new head reaper named Cameron Kane takes over. He’s a slick businessman who couldn’t care less about helping the newly dead. Chaos ensues and brings out the worst in Daisy and Mason who begin drinking anew. George and Reggie re-connect for the first time when George reaps a new friend of Reggie’s. 
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro returns to the phantasmagorical cinema that defined such early fare as Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone with this haunting fantasy-drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and detailing the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), recently remarried to sadistic army captain Vidal (Sergi López) and soon to bear the cruel military man’s child, shy young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is forced to entertain herself as her recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish countryside. As Ofelia’s bed-ridden mother lies immobilized in anticipation of her forthcoming child and her high-ranking stepfather remains determined to fulfill the orders of General Francisco Franco to crush a nearby guerilla uprising, the young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth presided over by the mythical faun Pan (Doug Jones). Convinced by Pan that she is the lost princess of legend and that in order to return to her underground home she must complete a trio of life-threatening tasks, Ofelia sets out to reclaim her kingdom and return to her grieving father as Vidal’s housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) and doctor (Alex Angulo) plot secretly on the surface to keep the revolution alive.
The new night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History finds that the job comes with more responsibility than he ever dreamed in this wild fantasy comedy directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Mickey Rooney, and Dick Van Dyke. Larry Daley (Stiller) is a kind-hearted dreamer who always knew that he was destined for greatness, he just never quite knew how. None of his ideas or inventions has panned out, so with a heavy heart, he takes a regular job as a lowly graveyard-shift security guard at the Museum of Natural History in order to provide a more stable life for himself and his ten-year-old son. His first night on the job, however, he finds that guardianship of the museum is far from stable — at nightfall, an Egyptian spell brings the artifacts and wax figures to life! With Attila the Hun charging to war through the hallways, the diorama miniatures embroiled in a deadly feud, and a two-ton Tyrannosaurus Rex nagging to play fetch, Larry has half a mind to turn tail and run. On top of cleaning up after two million years of historical chaos every night, he also has to make sure that not a single museum piece leaves the building — from the bratty Capuchin monkey in the African exhibit, to the life-sized Neanderthal in the prehistoric display — because if morning light falls on an escaped artifact, it will turn to dust. Larry turns to a wax replica of President Roosevelt (Williams) for a little advice on keeping things in tact, but Teddy seems to think that a man of Larry’s greatness needs little help. Larry isn’t sure if the former commander in chief is right; this is hardly what he signed up for, but he can’t pass up the chance to care for a museum where history really does come to life.
When Coraline moves to an old house, she feels bored and neglected by her parents. She finds a hidden door with a bricked up passage. During the night, she crosses the passage and finds a parallel world where everybody has buttons instead of eyes, with caring parents and all her dreams coming true. When the Other Mother invites Coriline to stay in her world forever, the girl refuses and finds that the alternate reality where she is trapped is only a trick to lure her.
The architect Michael Newman has a typical middle-class family with his lovely and gorgeous wife Donna and their son Ben and daughter Samantha, and a constant visit of his parents. However, Michael is workaholic and under stress, trying to satisfy his boss with overwork and get a partnership in his company, giving priority to his work and neglecting the family issues. When the tired Michael goes to a department store to buy an universal remote control, he rests on a bed and he meets the weird salesman Morty that offers him a remote control capable of controlling his own universe. Michael uses too much and loses the control of the device, having his own life controlled by the remote control. Then Michael sees the worthwhile parts of his personal life he missed while working, and in the end of his life he lately concludes that the family comes first.