Watching Movie Online

Release Date: February 19, 2010 (limited; expands: March 5)
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Director: Roman Polanski

When a successful British ghostwriter, The Ghost, agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, his agent assures him it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start—not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang’s long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident.

The Ghost flies out to work on the project, in the middle of winter, to an oceanfront house on an island off the U.S. Eastern seaboard. But the day after he arrives, a former British cabinet minister accuses Lang of authorizing the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA—a war crime. The controversy brings reporters and protesters swarming to the island mansion where Lang is staying with his wife, Ruth, and his personal assistant (and mistress), Amelia. As The Ghost works, he begins to uncover clues suggesting his predecessor may have stumbled on a dark secret linking Lang to the CIA—and that somehow this information is hidden in the manuscript he left behind. Was Lang in the service of the American intelligence agency while he was prime minister? And was The Ghost’s predecessor murdered because of the appalling truth he uncovered?

Resonating with topical themes, this atmospheric and suspenseful political thriller is a story of deceit and betrayal on every level— sexual, political and literary. In a world in which nothing, and no one, is as it seems, The Ghost quickly discovers that the past can be deadly—and that history is decided by whoever stays alive to write it.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence and a drug reference)

Starring:

Ewan McGregor

Pierce Brosnan

Kim Cattrall

Olivia Williams

Tom Wilkinson

Timothy Hutton

Eli Wallach

Popularity: 9% [?]

From Oscar®-winning director Martin Scorsese, “Shutter Island” is the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the cost of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane.

Starring:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Mark Ruffalo

Ben Kingsley

Michelle Williams

Patricia Clarkson

Max von Sydow

Release Date: February 19, 2010
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: Martin Scorsese

MPAA Rating: R (for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity)

Popularity: 13% [?]

eRelease Date: January 29, 2010
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Martin Campbell
Screenwriter: William Monahan, Andrew Bovell

Starring: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Shawn Roberts, Bojana Novakovic, Frank Grillo, Gbenga Akinnagbe

“Edge of Darkness” is an emotionally charged thriller set at the intersection of politics and big business. Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is a veteran homicide detective for the Boston Police Department and a single father. When his only child, twenty-four year-old Emma (Bojana Novakovic), is murdered on the steps of his home, everyone assumes that he was the target. But he soon suspects otherwise, and embarks on a mission to find out about his daughter’s secret life and her killing. His investigation leads him into a dangerous, looking glass world of corporate cover-ups, government collusion and murder – and to shadowy government operative Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who has been sent in to clean up the evidence. Craven’s solitary search for answers about his daughter’s death transforms into an odyssey of emotional discovery and redemption.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Release Date: January 22, 2010
Studio: Screen Gems (Sony)
Director: Scott Stewart
Screenwriter: Scott Stewart, Peter Schink
Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Tenney, Charles S. Dutton, Lucas Black, Kate Walsh, Doug Jones, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand, Willa Holland

In the supernatural action thriller “Legion,” an out-of-the-way diner becomes the unlikely battleground for the survival of the human race.

When God loses faith in Mankind, he sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse. Humanity’s only hope lies in a group of strangers trapped in a desert diner and the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany).

“Legion” also stars Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton and Willa Holland and is directed by Scott Stewart.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Release Date: January 8, 2010 (NY)
Studio: First Run Features
Director: Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi, David Heilbroner

“Waiting for Armageddon” explores the culture of 50 million American Evangelicals who believe that Bible prophecy dictates the future of mankind and that Israel and the Jewish people play pivotal roles in ensuring Christ’s return. The film raises questions regarding how this theology shapes U.S.- Middle East relations and how it may even encourage an international holy war.

Using intimate portraits and archival footage to explore how literal belief in Biblical prophecy – including the Rapture and Armageddon – exerts a dangerous influence on U.S. relations in the Middle East, Waiting for Armageddon tells its story through the eyes of three evangelical families who are certain that upon Christ’s Second Coming they will be “raptured” or lifted into the skies to join Christ while the rest of humanity suffers for seven years during “The Tribulation.”

The film then follows a Christian Study Tour group to Israel – among the tens of thousands of Evangelicals who pour into the Holy Land each year. The tourists are baptized in the River Jordon, sing the US national anthem on the Sea of Galilee, proclaim love for Israel, and describe how the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest sites in Islam, must be destroyed in order for Jesus to return. A controversial, potentially explosive relationship between Christian Evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims emerges. At an evangelical conference in Dallas, Texas, the film’s characters urge others to spread Biblical literalism and counter the dangerous effects of post-modernism. The climax of the gathering comes as Pastor John Hagee, the enormously influential Texas Minister of an 18,000-member mega-church, declares, “World War III has started.”

Popularity: 12% [?]

Release Date: January 8, 2010
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Anand Tucker

Starring: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow

Amy Adams and Matthew Goode star in “Leap Year,” a romantic comedy that follows one woman’s determined quest to get married to the perfect guy… despite what fate has in store for her.

When their four-year anniversary passes without a marriage proposal, Anna (Amy Adams) decides to take matters into her own hands. Investing in an Irish tradition that allows women to propose to men on February 29th, Anna decides to follow her boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) to Dublin and get down on one knee herself.

But airplanes, weather and fate leave Anna stranded on the other side of Ireland, and she must enlist the help of handsome and surly Declan (Matthew Goode) to get her across the country. As Anna and Declan bicker across the Emerald Isle, they discover that the road to love can take you to very unexpected places.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Release Date: January 8, 2010 (NY)
Studio: Icarus Films
Director: Petra Seeger

“In Search of Memory” is a critically-acclaimed biographical documentary on the life and work of neuroscientist Eric Kandel, winner in 2000 of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of the brain’s memory storage.

Kandel, born in Vienna in 1929, emigrated to the U.S. at the age of nine to escape Nazi persecution. After early studies in history and literature, he focused on medicine and became a psychoanalyst before devoting his life, for the last fifty years, to neuroscience. His research field, which is closely linked with his traumatic childhood experience during the Nazi era in Vienna and the Holocaust, is the search for memory. He relates his life story and scientific work in his award-winning autobiography, “In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind,” in 2006.

The documentary interweaves Kandel’s life story with the latest advances in neuroscience. Petra follows Kandel on a very personal journey into his own memory, which takes us to the external and internal locations of his childhood in Vienna, using both archival footage and dramatic re-creations, to his laboratory work at Columbia University in New York, and, through his research, right into the center of the brain, as he explains where and how our memories are stored.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Release Date: December 11, 2009
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Clint Eastwood

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

Starring:

Morgan Freeman

Matt Damon

Popularity: 4% [?]