THE MUMMY 2017

In 1127 A.D., a group of English crusader knights capture a gem from ancient Egypt and bury it with them in death. In present day London, a construction crew discover the knights' tomb and a mysterious man is authorized to investigate the uncovered findings within the site. In a flashback, the heiroglyphics on a circular murial, which date back to the New Kingdom era, tell the story of Princess Ahmanet is first in line to succeed her father Pharaoh Menehptre, only to be stripped of her birthright when his second wife gives birth to a son. Determined to claim the throne for herself, Ahmanet sells her soul to the god Set, who gives her a special dagger to transfer his spirit into a corporeal form. After murdering her family, Ahmanet attempts to sacrifice her lover to give Set physical form, but her father's priests slay him and mummify Ahmanet, sentencing her to be buried alive for eternity with a sarcophagus.
In present day Iraq, soldier-of-fortune Nick Morton and his partner Chris Vail accidentally discover the tomb of Ahmanet after staging an airstrike on an insurgent stronghold. Jenny Halsey, an archeologist and former lover of Nick's, arrives and investigates the tomb, correctly concluding that it is a prison. After extracting Ahmanet's sarcophagus from a pool of mercury, Nick's superior, Colonel Greenway, places the sarcophagus on a transport plane headed to England. In-flight, Vail becomes possessed by Ahmanet's power due to being bitten by a camel spider while inside the tomb. After attempting to open the sarcophagus, he kills Greenway and attacks the group before Nick shoots him dead. A huge wave of crows then assault the plane, causing it to crash and kill everyone on board except for Jenny, who is parachuted off the plane by Nick. Nick awakens a day later in a morgue in Oxford, and learns from Vail's ghost that he has been cursed by Ahmanet, who seeks to use him as a replacement vessel for Set. Ahmanet herself escapes from the sarcophagus and begins feeding on rescue workers to regenerate her decomposed body. Turning the workers into zombie minions, she lures Nick and Jenny into a trap, forcing the two to fight off the minions as they unsuccessfully try to escape. At the last second, unknown soldiers appear and subdue her. Their leader, Dr. Henry Jekyll, explains that Jenny is an agent of Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to hunting supernatural threats whose base is under the Natural History Museum of London, and contains such objects as the hand of the Gill-man and a vampire's fanged skull. He confirms that Nick was cursed when he unlocked Ahmanet's tomb and reveals his intention to complete her ritual and allow Set to possess Nick in order to destroy Set and end his evil for good.
Meanwhile, Ahmanet takes control of a Prodigium technician and frees herself from captivity, wreaking havoc, death, and destruction in the process. Jekyll succumbs to his own dark impulses and transforms into Edward Hyde, his murderous and psychotic alternative personality, nearly killing Nick before Nick manages to stop Hyde with the serum Jekyll uses to suppress himself. Nick and Jenny then escape Prodigium, while Ahmanet steals back the dagger, summons an army of deceased English crusaders to serve her, and creates a massive sandstorm that ravages London.
Guided by Vail, Nick and Jenny flee into the subway tunnels under London, but are attacked by Ahmanet's minions. Ahmanet captures Jenny and drowns her, hoping to break her hold over Nick. Nick puts up a fight, but gives up and lets himself embrace Ahmanet, using it as a ruse to steal the dagger and stab himself. His body is possessed by Set, who proceeds to join Ahmanet to uphold his end of the bargain until he sees Jenny's dead body, at which point Nick regains control and uses Set's powers to suck the life out of Ahmanet, turning her back into a shriveled mummy.
Nick uses Set's powers to resurrect Jenny, saying goodbye before becoming overwhelmed by Set's power and disappearing. Soon, Jenny links up with Dr. Jekyll and they discuss if Nick, now fused with Set, is good or evil and whose side he's on as Ahmanet's corpse is lowered into a locked pool of mercury within the Prodigium base for safekeeping. It is also revealed that Nick has resurrected Vail, who questions as to what they will do now, to which Nick responds, "Where's your sense of adventure?" The two ride off in the desert as a sandstorm trails behind them, with Jekyll telling Jenny that as long as a part of Nick's humanity remains, he will continue to search for a way to become human again.

Wonder Woman

 

In present-day Paris, Diana Prince, curator for the Louvre's Department of Antiquities,^[6] receives a World War I-era photographic plate couriered by Wayne Enterprises and recalls her past.

Diana was born and raised on the island of Themyscira, home to the Amazons, a race of warrior women created by the gods ofMount Olympus to protect humankind against the corruption of Ares, the god of war. In the distant past, Ares slew all his fellow gods, but his mortally wounded father, Zeus, was able to strike him down. Before succumbing to his injuries, to guard against Ares' return, Zeus left behind a weapon for the Amazons capable of killing his renegade son: the "Godkiller", which Diana believes to be a ceremonial sword. Diana wants to train as an Amazon warrior, but her mother, Queen Hippolyta, refuses to allow it, insisting that Ares will never return. However, Diana and her aunt, General Antiope, disobey Hippolyta and begin training in secret. When the two are discovered by Hippolyta, Antiope convinces the queen to allow Diana's training to continue.

As a young woman, Diana rescues pilot Steve Trevor after his plane crashes off the coast of Themyscira. The island is soon invaded by the German soldiers pursuing Steve. The Amazons engage and kill all the soldiers, but Antiope dies protecting Diana. Interrogated with the Lasso of Truth, Steve reveals that World War I is well underway, and he is an Allied spy. He stole a notebook from chief Spanish chemist Doctor Maru, who is creating a deadlier form of mustard gas under the orders of General Erich Ludendorff. Believing Ares is responsible for the war, Diana arms herself with the ceremonial sword and leaves Themyscira with Steve to find and destroy Ares, although Hippolyta says she might never be able to return to Themyscira.

In London, Steve's secretary Etta Candy helps Diana pick new clothes to blend in. They then deliver Maru's notes to Steve's superiors at the Imperial War Cabinet, including Sir Patrick Morgan, who is trying to negotiate an armistice with Germany. Steve believes Ludendorff will complete and use the gas regardless of an armistice. With Sir Patrick's support, Steve and Diana infiltrate the Western Front in Belgium, accompanied by Steve's team: spy Sameer, marksman Charlie, and smuggler Chief. The group's progress is halted by enemy trenches, until Diana pushes alone through the German lines, rallying the Allied forces behind her to liberate a village. The team briefly celebrates and has a group picture taken (the photographic plate that was shown earlier in the film). Later that night, Diana and Steve share a kiss and it is implied that they spent the night together.

The team learns that Ludendorff will attend a gala at a nearby castle. Steve infiltrates the party, intending to follow Ludendorff to the weapon storage area. Diana, however, believes Ludendorff is Ares and that killing him will end the war. Steve stops her to avoid jeopardizing the mission. Ludendorff gasses the village the team liberated earlier, killing everyone. Diana blames Steve for the loss of lives. She pursues Ludendorff to a complex where the gas is being loaded into a bomber bound for London. Diana fights and kills Ludendorff whose strength and aggression are enhanced by another gas invented by Dr. Maru, but is shocked when his death does not stop the war.

Sir Patrick appears, revealing that he is actually Ares. He tells Diana that although he has subtly given humans ideas and inspirations, it is ultimately humankind's decision to cause war and violence. After destroying the ceremonial sword, Ares reveals that Diana is the true "Godkiller": she is Zeus' youngest child, and thus Ares' half-sister. Ares attempts to convince Diana that humanity is inherently corrupt, and that she should join him and help destroy humankind to pave way to a new paradise. While the two battle and their comrades destroy Dr. Maru's lab, Steve commandeers the bomber carrying the gas and sacrifices himself to incinerate it at a safe distance. Diana attacks the German soldiers out of rage, encouraged by Ares, but when he persuades her to kill an unmasked and helpless Dr. Maru, Diana shows her mercy, having been inspired by Steve's selflessness and his final words to her. Diana then summons her power and overpowers and destroys Ares. Back in London, the team solemnly celebrates the end of the war.

In the present day, Diana sends an e-mail to Bruce Wayne thanking him for the photographic plate of her and Steve and reaffirms her mission to protect all life as Wonder Woman.

Grow House: Summary

Two friends, desperate for money, decide to build a grow house for medical marijuana, though the operation comes with a lot more risks and many more partners than they expected. 

"Grow House" is written and directed by DJ Pooh, whose credits include movies like "3 Strikes" and "The Wash." It stars Lil Duval and DeRay Davis as long time friends Darius and Pat. The two need some money, and they also want some weed, so they concoct a plan to build a grow house in one of the abodes Darius's girlfriend is selling so they can make money supplying to medical marijuana dispensaries in the area. Luckily enough, thanks to a fire mixtape from years past, they are able to borrow some seed (TEHEHEHE SEED) money from Snoop Dogg, yes, that Snoop Dogg, to start their business. Like chickens with their heads cut off, running around aimlessly and carelessly, their lack of knowledge lands them not only a lot of trouble, but far more business partners than they expected they would need for such a venture, leaving them with an ever-dwindling cut of the money and the sticky icky. 

It is interesting to note that "Grow House" is only running for one week and has only one showtime every single day at 4:20 pm. We're not even going to lie, that's pretty amazing.

This is a pretty typical and expected low budget stoner comedy with a long roster of C-to-D-list actors at the helm. When it comes down to it, almost every line of dialogue has something to do with Pat and Darius's desires for weed and money as they try to figure out how to obtain said weed and money. As they start their venture, they find they need the help of a professional, and Conspiracy Chris, played by Martin Starr, is just the guy to do it, and at the right price. This is all interlaced with a heavy helping of profanity, cameos from rappers, weed paraphernalia, and "what do you mean you people?" jokes (which, if you've been paying attention, is a joke that has been heavily featured in the marketing for the upcoming "Baywatch" movie). There are also regular drop-ins from their new neighbors, in particular Madison, played by Zulay Henao, the neighborhood's resident hottie, and Mrs. Gilliam, played by Lin Shaye, who is huge drinker and is obsessed with BBCs (big bad chocolate wolves, aka Darius); eventually, her constant flirtations take a turn and it is expressly mentioned that Darius "took one for the team" by getting molested and "raped" by Mrs. Gilliam. Ugh.

Lil Duval and DeRay Davis are likable guys and deliver the occasional joke or slapstick gag that hits its mark. There are a few instances of good comedic timing, but most of the time, the humor here is generic as hell. Snoop Dogg literally plays himself and does as well as one might expect for someone showing up for their contractually mandated three scenes in a movie. The overall narrative, which feels weird to say in a movie strictly about growing weed, is rather contrived as thing happen out of pure convenience or necessity rather than something that feels natural or engaging. Finally, technically speaking, we have to admit, we've seen better editing on YouTube videos. The way the movie is put together with occasional visible visual seams cutting scenes together is supremely amateur.

In the end, if you can get over the low budget look, feel, acting, setting, and writing of"Grow House," there are a couple of real genuine laughs to be had. Overall, most the humor misses its intended mark and made us cringe rather than guffaw, and the entire thing feels a little less than pedestrian.

Table 19: Summary and Review

After starting out as the bridesmaid to her best friend Francie's wedding, Eloise McGarry is swiftly 'demoted' two months before the wedding when her boyfriend Teddy, the bride's brother and the best man, dumps her. After switching back and forth on whether or not to attend, Eloise RSVPs, only to find herself seated at Table 19, a table intended for guests who were only reluctantly invited and whom the hosts hoped would not attend. The other denizens of Table 19 are Jerry and Bina Kepp, who own a diner and are Facebook friends with the groom's father due to his own diner chain, Renzo Eckberg, whose parents are acquaintances and came to the wedding in the hopes of meeting a girl, Jo Flanagan, Francie's childhood nanny, and Walter Thimble, a distant nephew who is currently on parole after he was tricked into stealing $125 000 from his last job.

Although the six initially have difficulty finding anything to talk about, they swiftly band together when Jo realizes that Eloise is pregnant, leading to a confrontation with Teddy about dumping Eloise because she said they would be ridiculous parents, the confrontation resulting in the destruction of the wedding cake when Teddy backs into it. Bitter at this development, and feeling unappreciated at the wedding, the Table 19 denizens go to Jo's room to smoke pot and converse about their reasons for attending the wedding. Going out for a walk, Jerry offers Renzo some awkward advice about how to pick up girls, while Eloise realizes that Jo has cancer, Jo admitting that she is probably 'due' at the same time as Eloise will give birth. Remembering a man she encountered earlier, Eloise attempts to find him with the aid of the wedding photographer and the hotel reception staff, but they learn that 'Huck' is actually the groom of another wedding. Deciding to score a small payback and atone for the earlier accident, Walter steals Huck's wedding cake to replace the one damaged earlier.

Returning to the wedding, Table 19 is visited by the bride and groom, the groom noting that his father has always complimented the Kepp diner and Francie assuring Jo and Eloise that she appreciates their efforts. A brief but touching childhood story Francie shares about Teddy inspires the table to see him in a new light, prompting Eloise to shout out an apology to him as the boat carrying the core wedding party sails away. Returning to the wedding hall for the last of the cake, Table 19 asks the band to play them another dance, but the mood significantly changes when Teddy appears, having literally jumped off the boat and swam back to hear what Eloise was saying to him.

A few months later, Jo has apparently died of cancer, but the Kepps are now taking care of her dog, Renzo and Walter have kept in touch with the rest of the Table 19 guests, and Eloise and Teddy are an awkward family with their new son, whom Eloise has named Joe (Jo having noted in an earlier conversation that 'Joe' is a fine name for a boy but caused nothing but trouble for a girl).

The Last Word: Summary and Review

Fresh from her television appearance looking aghast at her brother Warren Beatty after the already legendary Best-Picture-flub at the Oscars, Shirley MacLaine is in a new theatrical release. Like too many movies in which the lead performer is over 80 years of age (the great MacLaine will turn 83 in April), “The Last Word” opens with a montage of photographs of said performer in her youth, and young adulthood, in this case doctored to make it look like she spent that adulthood being something other than a great motion picture star.

The movie’s opening proper finds MacLaine standing in front of one of the gabled windows of the spacious house in which her character, Harriet Lauler, lives in comfortable isolation. Seemingly friendless, she haunts the grounds of her property, control-freaking-out both her landscaper (hey, that’s Gedde Watanabe!) and live-in cook (Yvette Freeman). She is sick of life, and so she half-heartedly tries to end it, but after a tetchy confrontation with a physician she’s struck by a notion: to commission her own obituary. So determined, she marches into the offices of her California town’s local paper (which, she reminds its current editor, she saved on many occasions while she made her fortune working in advertising) and demands to meet its obit writer. This turns out to be another woman, a young disaffected one named Anne Sherman, played by Amanda Seyfried. “The thought of leaving my obituary to chance is very unreasonable to me,” Harriet explains to Anne, laying out what she believes to be her bona fides as a “reasonable” woman.
I don’t know how long this movie’s script, by Stuart Ross Fink, has been kicking around, but there’s something distinctly off about Seyfried’s character. Her mien, attitude, mode of dress, all that, suggest she’s a time traveler, come to 2017 America directly from the release date of the first Pixies album. (That would be March 21, 1988.) It’s a testimony to Seyfried’s work that this peculiarity does not necessarily stick in one’s craw as the movie progresses.
And the movie progresses pretty precisely along the lines its premise suggests, if not demands. It is of course A Journey in which a Crusty Older Woman instructs an Unformed Younger Woman in the art of not compromising, and the Unformed Younger Woman instructs the Crusty Older Woman in healing old relationships and forming new ones. And there’s even an adorable underprivileged little African-American girl, Brenda (AnnJewel Lee Dixon) along for the ride, which includes a road trip in which a rapprochement with Harriet’s estranged daughter (Anne Heche) is broached.
This is, among other things, something of a fatty movie. It goes out of its way to hit “beats” that it presumes will be satisfying to a mainstream audience, as when Anne, Harriet, and Brenda bond over McDonald’s food during their road trip. The one mildly unexpected piece of character development comes when Anne encourages Harriet to do something with her modest but choice vinyl collection. This leads to a rhapsody on the joys of hearing a perfectly sequenced radio set, and soon Harriet herself is inveigling the manager of a free-form FM station (there’s that influence from 1988 again) into giving her the “drive time” slot as a DJ. Anne is actually shopping at a used record store when she hear Harriet on the air for the first time. Who goes record shopping between six and eleven in the morning? None of the record stores I used to go to even OPENED before eleven. In any event, it’s in this area that the movie, oddly enough, finds some interesting footing. Director Mark Pellington, who began his career as an in-house rebel at MTV, still has a sharp sense about music and people’s potential relation to it, and Harriet’s DJing sets are a highlight. As are certain quiet, individual scenes between MacLaine and Seyfried. A less expansive treatment of the story might have yielded a less persistently conventional character study, this suggests. But to get to what’s good about “The Last Word” you’re obliged to take it warts and all.

War Machine [Plot and Review]

Watching War Machine is to witness a film applying an accessibly dark comic tone to the low-hanging fruit of the futility of nation-building in Afghanistan. The movie takes place in 2009, when General Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt as a version of Gen. Stanley McChrystal)—fresh off successes in Iraq—is put in charge of the multi-nation, U.S.-led coalition to stamp out the Taliban while molding Afghanistan into what a country should look like according to Western democracies, which, as McMahon describes it, means jobs and security. Our introduction to McMahon comes through a narrator, Sean Cullen (Scoot McNairy), who is based on the late Michael Hastings. It was Hastings’ article for Rolling Stone that led to McChrystal’s ouster, and it was Hastings who wrote The Operators, upon which this film is based. His narration sets the sardonic tone, and every characterization and situation that follows reinforces it. The problem with War Machine is its difficulty keeping its tone consistent in the service of a compelling story or dramatic rendering of ideas.

Cullen-as-narrator casually drops that McMahon was a straight-A student with a degree from Yale, while simultaneously characterizing him as a well-meaning jock out of his depth. The way Pitt plays him and Cullen describes him, McMahon is a decent, disciplined jarhead trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. If you were already inclined to think of our involvement in Afghanistan as an incompetent diaster, War Machine might be your film: Those given charge of transforming the region can’t even make an electric razor or Blu-ray player work.

For director and screenwriter David Michôd, McMahon is well intentioned but doesn’t realize he’s in way over his head. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai (Ben Kingsley in full comic mode) is only figurehead and knows it, something that McMahon doesn’t when he seeks out Karzai’s approval for a mission. With few exceptions, Pitt’s McMahon is the cartoonish stand-in for military buffoonery and blind spots, a gruff-voiced, hoo-rah enthusiast not far from Pitt’s Aldo Raine character in Inglourious Basterds. Such is his commitment to routines that he takes a seven-mile run every day, eats one meal per and sleeps a mere four hours. His speeches to the troops demonstrate he understands that you can’t kill the very people you’re trying to help. In his math lesson to European leaders, McMahon notes that “10-2 = 20.” Meaning that the more of “them” you kill, the more you inspire others on the fence to join “them.”

During that same scene, a German politician (Tilda Swinton) gets to make a very long, interrupting, exasperated sermon that speaks for the movie itself: While she believes in McMahon’s basic goodness, she’s sure that he and the coalition are wrong to try to nation-build in a place like Afghanistan, where resistance is spread throughout. For his part, McMahon is aware that he can’t war his way to victory in Afghanistan, but doesn’t entertain the notion that he has any other choice than to try. He’s got a job to do, and he’s foolish enough to take it seriously even though it’s clear that those who gave him the job do not. One didactic scene touching on this Gordian knot has a soldier (an excellent Lakeith David) acting thoroughly confused and frustrated by this “help them, don’t kill them” dictate. When McMahon tells him to get “unconfused,” we’re supposed to see this as yet another example of the general’s inability to deal with complexity and hard facts beyond a certain level.

It’s a compelling exchange in a film with some strong moments, such as McMahon telling a rude dinner guest to get lost, or any of McMahon’s touching interactions with his wife (Meg Tilly in an outstanding turn), or the awful aftermath of a battle. But as good as these moments are, War Machine lacks compelling drama, or at least a consistency in tone and formal structure to justify its two-hour running time. Sometimes we’re empathizing with McMahon, and at others we’re expected to laugh at him (especially with the way Pitt crinkles his face like Popeye). He cuts a sympathetic figure because he’s trying to do the right thing amidst politicians—including Obama—whose idea of goals is moving the needle in the right direction, meaning a direction that makes it look like U.S. forces and the people of Afghanistan are “winning.” McMahon wants more troops to make a difference in nation-building; Obama will give him those troops, but only for PR purposes. So we come to understand that the war machine of the title is about having moving parts, not accomplishing anything.

This is where the movie exhibits some bite: through McMahon’s interactions with those who can only see Afghanistan in terms of how it affects politicians like Obama back home. One of these, U.S. Ambassador Pat McKinnon (Alan Ruck), expresses a cynicism that runs so deep, and is so transparent, it makes for a couple of alarming and satisfying confrontations between him and McMahon.

By frequently reminding us that McMahon is oblivious to what his masters really want, Michôd’s film is as much of a blunt, simple instrument as that which it tries to lampoon. The D.C. suits are the realists, caring only about electability, and McMahon is a cartoon. There’s a benefit to that light touch, as it keeps the movie from being consumed by self-seriousness, but by making McMahon the jokey center of the film, Michôd seems to let the D.C. establishment of the hook. This appears to be true of War Machine’s final image, where the telling of a joke ends up taking precedence over what the joke is meant to reveal. In the right context, that punch line could be a real kicker. Here, it needs a way better set-up.

Berlin Syndrome

THE PLOT                                                                                       

Clare (Teresa Palmer) is a young tourist backpacking around Germany, taking photographs and exploring shops. She meets a local named Andi (Max Riemelt) and decides to stay an extra night in Berlin, having a one night stand with him. The next morning however she finds that he has locked her in his apartment with no intention of ever letting her go.

Andi lives what appears as a normal life with a day job and a relationship with his father who is a Professor. While Clare is locked up inside his apartment he has a casual dinner with his father where he mentions meeting a new young woman and even says her real name. His father asks what happened to Natalie? To which Andi replies that she went back to Canada. That night when Andi lets Clare shower, she finds long blond hair clumped in the drain, likely belonging to Natalie whose whereabouts is probably unknown. Clare realizes how dangerous Andi really is and while he is away the next day manages to find a screwdriver which she fails at attacking him with when he returns home.

One night a teenage student of Andi's named Franka (whom he is attracted to) shows up at his door. Franka sees a flash of Clare wet in a towel and Andi says it is his girlfriend and puts Franka down so that she leaves. Meanwhile Andi takes polaroids of Clare in disturbing positions and keeps them for himself.

Time passes as Andi keeps Clare locked up in his home as his prisoner, texting her mother from her phone. When he finds his father has died in his sleep he remains in his father's house for a few days, wandering around depressed, while Clare is left to her own devices. Unable to escape she takes polaroids of herself and eats what is left of the food until Andi finally returns a week later. He tells her his father has died, and she appears relieved as she thought he was not going to come back.

As the holidays approach, Clare's attitude seemingly changes and her mood brightens. She learns the accordion, bakes, cleans, and sleeps with Andi willingly. Just after Christmas, Andi takes her out into the forest, planning to kill her. Before he does, a child cries out running toward them saying his brother has hurt his leg. She whispers to the boy to go to the police, but he does not understand English and is afraid of her. After the boy's mother appears, Andi takes Clare home. Clare eventually finds a photo book filled with Polaroids of other victims--women who look just like her, that are assumed to have been murdered.

A man with a flashlight sees Clare in one of the unboarded windows and attempts to rescue her as she cries for help. Andi comes home just then and viciously kills the man. He then forces Clare to help wrap the body in plastic. He takes the body outside and burns it. More time passes, as Clare is held prisoner.

Andi hands out his students' workbooks, giving Franka hers. She opens it, revealing a Polaroid that Claire had hidden for her to find. She gasps and excuses herself. It is then revealed that every single student has found a damaging polaroid in their workbooks, and that Andi has been exposed. He leaves quickly, speeding back to his house. Franka has ridden her bike to the house and found Clare, but they have not had time to leave when Andi arrives. They hide, and Clare is finally able to traps Andi in the part of the house where he had kept her, locking him in there. Clare is seen later riding in a cab, putting back on a necklace her mother had given her, and that Andi had stolen. She cries happily as she lets her face feel the fresh air from the car window, finally free.

COLOSSAL: All she could do was save the world

THE PLOT

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is an unemployed writer struggling with alcoholism. Her errant behavior prompts her frustrated boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) to break up with her and kick her out of their New York City apartment. Forced to move back to her Middle American hometown, Gloria ends up reuniting with her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who now runs his late father's bar. Oscar is warm and welcoming to Gloria; he brings her an old television for her unfurnished house and also offers her a job at the bar to help her get back on her feet, which Gloria accepts.

Working with Oscar at the bar does not help Gloria's alcohol problem. After each shift she joins Oscar and his friends Garth (Tim Blake Nelson) and Joel (Austin Stowell) in their ritual of hanging out and drinking until morning. Gloria takes to sleeping it off on a bench near a children's playground. At the same time, a giant reptilian kaiju appears in Seoul, South Korea, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Gradually, Gloria realizes that when she walks through the playground at exactly 8:05 in the morning, she causes the monster to manifest.

Gloria reveals her secret to Oscar and his friends, but the situation becomes more complicated when Oscar steps onto the playground and causes a giant robot to manifest in Seoul. Gloria ultimately tries to make amends by spelling out an apology on the ground, to the delight of the South Koreans and the media, and she begins to avoid both the playground and alcohol.

After spending the night with Joel, Gloria discovers that a drunken Oscar is using his avatar to taunt the South Koreans. After a tense confrontation, Gloria manages to make him leave. Oscar, for his part, is jealous that something happened between Gloria and Joel. Later that night at the bar, Oscar drunkenly insults his friends and demands that Gloria have a drink. Oscar threatens Gloria to obey him, saying he will return to the playground if she does not. The next morning, a sobered up Oscar confesses his remorse and pleads with Gloria to forgive him. Gloria accepts his apology, but it is clear that Oscar continues to want to control her.

Tim shows up in town on a pretense in order to see Gloria. Oscar provokes a confrontation that ends with him setting off a large firework inside the bar. Oscar explains his performance by saying that, no matter how out of control he may become, he knows that Gloria will remain under his thumb. Later, Oscar shows up at Gloria's house, telling her he is there to prevent her from calling Tim and going back home with him.

A flashback to a freak incident with lightning that strikes both Gloria and Oscar when they are kids passing near the playground area reveals to Gloria how she and Oscar are able to manifest their avatars in South Korea. Gloria also realizes why Oscar acts out in violence and manipulation – he hates himself. Gloria resolves to leave town with Tim. Oscar, intending to make good on his threat, heads for the playground. When Gloria follows, Oscar beats her, leaving her on the ground while he terrorizes Seoul.

Upon returning to her house, Gloria has another realization. She contacts Tim to apologize and say that she cannot join him; she has taken a plane to South Korea. Once again at 8:05 in the morning, U.S. time, Oscar causes the giant robot to manifest in Seoul. As she heads towards Oscar's avatar, Gloria causes her monster to appear again, this time at the playground. Clutched in the kaiju's giant hand, Oscar is vicious and controlling to the end, telling Gloria to "put me down, you fucking bitch!" At that, the Gloria/kaiju throws Oscar away like a broken toy, and the giant robot disappears from Seoul.

Her mission accomplished, Gloria retreats to an empty bar. Settling into her seat, Gloria promises the young woman serving drinks an incredible story. Offered a drink, Gloria simply lets out a long sigh.

LIFE

THE PLOT

The six-member International Space Station (ISS) crew capture a probe returning from Mars with a soil sample that might contain evidence of extraterrestrial life. Exobiologist Hugh Derry revives a dormant cell from the sample, and it quickly grows into a multi-celled organism that American school children name "Calvin". After an atmospheric accident in the lab, Calvin becomes dormant. Hugh revives Calvin with mild electric shocks, but Calvin immediately becomes hostile and attacks Hugh, crushing his hand. While Calvin devours a lab rat and grows in size, engineer Rory Adams enters the room and rescues Hugh. However, Calvin latches onto Rory's leg and physician David Jordan locks Rory in the room to keep Calvin contained. After Rory unsuccessfully attacks Calvin with a flame thrower, Calvin enters his mouth, killing him from the inside. Emerging from Rory's mouth even larger, Calvin escapes through a vent. Hugh theorizes that lack of breathable air on Mars is what kept the organism dormant.

Finding their communication with Earth cut off, mission commander Katerina Golovkina performs a space walk to fix the antenna. Calvin attacks her outside the ISS, rupturing her spacesuit's coolant system in the process, causing liquid to fill her helmet. She refuses to open the airlock to seek help, keeping Calvin out of the station but causing her to drown in her spacesuit.

Calvin attempts to enter the station through the thrusters. The crew try to use the thrusters to launch Calvin into deep space, but their attempt fails and the station loses too much fuel. The ISS enters a decaying orbit, which will eventually cause the station to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Pilot Sho Murakami informs the crew that they need to use the remaining fuel to get back into a safe orbit, but the attempt would allow Calvin back into the station. The crew plan to make Calvin dormant by sealing themselves into one module and venting the atmosphere from the rest of the station.

When Hugh enters cardiac arrest, the crew realize that Calvin had attached itself to Hugh's leg and was feeding off of him. Having grown into a larger tentacled creature, Calvin attacks the remainder of the crew. Sho seals himself inside a sleeping pod as Calvin attempts to crack the glass and get to him. David and quarantine officer Miranda North use Hugh's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away from Sho and trap it in a module to deprive it of oxygen.

Having received a distress call prior to the damage to the ISS communication system, Earth sends a Soyuz capsule as a fail-safe plan to push the station into deep space. The capsule docks with the station and starts pushing it into deep space. Believing this to be a rescue, Sho leaves his pod and rushes to board the arriving ship, attempting to force open the capsule's hatch. Once he opens the hatch, Calvin attacks him and the Soyuz crew. The crew tries to save Sho, but the encounter causes a docking breach that results in the capsule detaching and crashing into the ISS. David and Miranda, the only survivors, realize that the incident has again caused them to enter a decaying orbit. Aware that Calvin could survive re-entry, David recalls two escape pods, planning to lure Calvin into one pod and pilot it into deep space, allowing Miranda to escape to Earth in the other pod.

David leads Calvin into his pod and launches into space as Miranda launches hers. One of the pods hits debris and is knocked off course. Calvin attacks David as he struggles to send his pod into deep space. The earthbound pod performs a controlled re-entry and lands in water near two fishermen. As they approach the pod, it is revealed to be David's, who is encased in a web-like substance. Meanwhile, Miranda's navigation system fails and her pod is sent into deep space. David, still alive, tries to warn the fishermen not to attempt a rescue. The fishermen open the pod door as two other fishing boats arrive.

Alien Convenant

 THE PLOT

In a prologue, Peter Weyland speaks with his newly-activated synthetic, who chooses the name "David" after looking at a replica ofMichelangelo's statue of the Biblical David. Weyland tells David that one day they will search for mankind's creator together.

In 2104 the colonization ship Covenant is bound for a remote planet, Origae-6, with two thousand colonists and a thousand embryos onboard. The ship is monitored by Walter, a newer synthetic physically resembling the earlier David model. A sudden neutrino burst damages the ship, killing some of the colonists. Walter orders the computer to wake the crew from stasis, but the ship's captain, Branson, dies when his pod malfunctions. While repairing the ship, the crew pick up a radio transmission from a nearby unknown planet. Against the objections of Daniels, Branson's wife, succeeding captain Oram decides to investigate.

With the Covenant remaining in orbit, an expedition team descends to the planet's surface and tracks the transmission's signal to a crashed Engineer ship. While on the surface, security team members Ledward and Hallett are inadvertently infected with alien spores. Karine, Oram's wife, helps the rapidly sickening Ledward back to the lander, where Maggie, wife of pilot Tennessee, quarantines them both inside the med-bay. A Neomorph bursts from Ledward's back, killing him, then mauls Karine to death. Maggie tries to shoot the quickly growing creature but accidentally hits a gas tank, causing an explosion which destroys the lander and kills her. The Neomorph escapes to the planet's surface while another such creature bursts from Hallett's throat, killing him.

The two Neomorphs attack the remaining crew members and kill Ankor. The crew manages to kill one of the aliens before David, who survived the Prometheus mission, rescues the crew and leads them to a city full of Engineer corpses. David tells them that upon his and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw's arrival at the planet, their Engineer ship accidentally released a black liquid bioweapon which killed the native population, and that Shaw died when the ship crashed in the ensuing chaos. After the crew members tell David of their mission, they attempt to radio the Covenant for help, but the surviving Neomorph infiltrates the city and finds Rosenthal alone before decapitating her. David tries to communicate with the creature and is horrified when Oram kills it. Under Oram's gunpoint, David reveals that the aliens are a result of his experimenting with the black liquid as a catalyst to create a new species. He leads Oram to an incubation chamber and tricks him into being embraced by a facehugger, which implants Oram with an embryo. A Xenomorph soon erupts from Oram's chest, killing him.

As the others search for Oram and Rosenthal, Walter confronts David after realizing that David had deliberately unleashed the black liquid upon the Engineers. David explains that he believes humans are an inferior species and should not be allowed to colonize the galaxy. When Walter disagrees, David disables him and captures Daniels, revealing to her that he also murdered Shaw and used her corpse for his experiments. Walter reactivates himself and engages David, allowing Daniels to escape while Lope is attacked by the facehugger. Cole saves Lope before they are ambushed by the now mature Xenomorph, which kills Cole. Tennessee arrives in another lander to extract Daniels, Lope, and Walter. They kill the Xenomorph before docking with the Covenant; however, Lope had been implanted with another Xenomorph, which bursts from his chest on the ship before quickly maturing and killing crew members Ricks and Upworth. With Walter's help, Tennessee and Daniels corner the creature in the Covenant's airlock and flush it into space.

The Covenant resumes its trip to Origae-6, and the surviving crew re-enters stasis. As Walter puts Daniels under, she realizes that he is actually David, but is unable to escape her stasis pod before falling asleep. Now in total control of both the ship and its population, David regurgitates two alien embryos and places them in cold storage alongside the human embryos. He then uses Walter's name to record a log stating that all crew members except Daniels and Tennessee were killed by the neutrino blast at the beginning of the film.