3. Safe House
Thrilling but unspectacular, Denzel Washington leads a 1st rate cast as a diabolical global terrorist seeking protection from the CIA when all the world's hitmen start gunning for him and the information he posesses. Ryan Reynolds sorta slips into the background opposite the charismatic Washington, playing the untested agent serving as his main protector. Swedish director, Daniel Espinosa, keeps the energy at a high level and the tension mounted throughout, even if the script lets him down.
2. The Vow
A perfect Valentine's Day date movie, Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams play an artsy Chicago couple who must fall in love a second time when a terrible accident destroys her memory. Unabashedly romantic and earnest enough to overcome the cliches, The Vow tells a heartwarming story of the enduring nature of true love.
1. Chronicle
Believe it or not, what comic book fans want is less hokey superhero movies like Captain America and Spider-man, they want movies like Chronicle. Gritty, real, taking the genre down avenues nobody has been fit to explore. Chronicle takes some of it's cues from M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, giving us the dark origin of a hero and his nemesis, but steeped in teenage hormones and angst. An unbelievable film that makes the most of the "found footage" style, and capitalizes on the superior talents of director Josh Trank and star Dane DeHaan.
DVD Pick of the Week: Project NIM
If you found the cruel treatment of the chimps early on in Rise of the Planet of the Apes disturbing, then you might be surprised to realize much of it was taken from the true story of Nim Chimpsky. Directed by famed documentarian, James Marsh(Man On Wire), Project NIM tells the heartbreaking story of Chimpsky, who in the 1970s became part of a controversial experiment to raise him like a normal human child. While the experiment was done with the best of intentions, to test the extent of chimpanzee communication and language if raised as a human, it quickly becomes apparent that human judgements and weaknesses make for a bad combination with an animal's natural instincts.
