Movies Released February 22nd, 2013

In Summer 2013, director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness.

In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth.  In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.  

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York, but she doesn't really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she's not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren't really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has, but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. FRANCES HA is a modern comic fable in which Noah Baumbach explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption.

When ex-CIA agent Ben Logan (Eckhart) discovers that he and his daughter have been marked for termination as part of a wide-reaching international conspiracy, a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse ensues as Logan tries to outsmart his hunters and uncover the truth.

Three young women - Sarah (Kate Bosworth), Abby (Katie Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell) - get together for a private campout at one of the iconic settings of their childhood, an empty island off the coast of Maine, to renew their bond of sisterhood. They quickly learn, though, that the island is anything but empty, when they encounter three recently-returned servicemen, who have come to the island to hunt. A misunderstanding quickly turns to tragedy, and the three women soon find themselves the targets of the hunt. What started as a simple getaway to recall old times is now a race for survival as three ordinary woman must find extraordinary strength in order to beat the odds against violence and the elements.

Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore) is a forty-year-old unmarried high school English teacher in the small town of Kingston, Pennsylvania. She shares a small apartment with two Siamese cats and her rich collection of great literature. She maintains no close personal relationships aside from those she has with her favorite authors and stories. Her life is far less complicated than the dramas she devours on the page, and she likes it that way.

But Linda’s simple life turns an unexpected page when former star pupil Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) returns to Kingston after trying to make it as a playwright in New York. Now in his 20s, Jason is on the verge of abandoning art, pressured by his overbearing father, Dr. Tom Sherwood (Greg Kinnear), to face reality and go to law school. Linda can’t stand the thought of Jason giving up on his dreams so she decides to mount his play – a dark, angst-ridden, ambitious work – as a Kingston High School production, with flamboyant drama teacher Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane) directing.

As Linda, now well out of her normal comfort zone, takes further risks in life and love, the stage is set for highly comic downfall. With the play, her reputation, and her teaching career on the line, Linda finds an unlikely ally in herself. Amidst the ruins of her formerly perfect life, can she find a way to her own unique storybook ending?

Kellan Lutz (Twilight, Immortals) and Academy Award Nominee and Golden Globe Winner Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler, Immortals, Iron Man 2) star in Java Heat: an exotic cross-cultural action thriller about a reckless American who teams up with a Muslim cop to stop a terrorist mastermind.

At a time when relations between the West and Islam are dangerously tense, Java Heat opens amidst the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. Java Heat centers on Jake (Lutz), a reckless American tough guy who becomes embroiled in the turmoil ensuing the attacks, which killed the country’s much beloved Sultana.

Jake is bent on vengeance but quickly finds the world a more complicated place than he can solve with violence alone. Lost among labyrinths of religious, political and cultural havoc, Jake must ally with cerebral Muslim detective Hashim (rising Indonesian star Ario Bayu), who handles Jake more like a suspect than a partner. The uneasy friendship leads to a treacherous man-hunt for the attack’s real instigator, a new breed of klepto-terrorist (Rourke), who is even more twisted and terrifying than the Jihadist terrorists he hides behind.

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, Pietà is the acclaimed film from the celebrated and controversial Korean director Kim Ki-Duk (Bad Guy; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring; 3-Iron). In this intense and haunting story, a loan shark living an isolated and lonely existence uses brutality to threaten and collect paybacks from desperate borrowers for his moneylender boss. He proficiently and mercilessly collects the debts without regard to the pain he causes his countless victims. One day, a mysterious woman appears in front of him claiming to be his long-lost mother. After coldly rejecting her at first, he gradually accepts her in his life and decides to quit his cruel job and seek a decent, redemptive life. However, he soon discovers a dark secret stemming from his past and realizes it may be too late to escape the horrific consequences already set in motion from his previous life.

After suffering an inexplicable seizure which leaves her paralyzed on her right side, 19-year-old Augustine (27 year-old singer-turned-actress Soko in a break out performance), is shipped off to Paris' all female psychiatric hospital Pitié-Salpêtriere which specializes in detecting the then-fashionable ailment of 'hysteria'. Augustine captures the attention of Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon, Mademoiselle Chambon, Welcome) after a seizure which appears to give her intense physical pleasure. Intrigued, he begins using her as his principal subject hypnotizing her in front of fellow doctors - as she displays her unusual fits in lecture halls - eventually blurring the lines between doctor and patient.

For ten years, Chinese orphan Mei Mei (Zhu Lin) dreams of meeting her Australian sponsor – Dean Randall (Guy Pearce) – and his ‘perfect family’. When her orphanage travels to Australia to attend the Australian Choir Festival, Mei Mei takes the opportunity to look him up. What she finds, however, is far from the idyllic life he depicted in his postcards. Initially mismatched and disconnected, the two begin a journey in search of belonging, family, redemption, love and acceptance.

Although controversial conservative pundit / website founder Andrew Breitbart suddenly died a week ago, it seems he was working with a documentary crew on a film about his life and his message. Personally, I don't know much about Breitbart but from the film's trailer we do see the man was hated, hence the film's title.

In 2009, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad launched a plan to demonstrate that his people were deserving of statehood, inspiring them to change their destiny and seek UN membership. Since then, they've made remarkable progress, but the political quagmire--and Fayyad's recent resignation from office--may destroy the most promising opportunity for peace in years.

In this inspired new film, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley discovers that the truth depends on who’s telling it. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She playfully interviews and interrogates a cast of characters of varying reliability, eliciting refreshingly candid, yet mostly contradictory, answers to the same questions. As each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving. "Stories We Tell" explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about how our narratives shape and define us as individuals and families, all interconnecting to paint a profound, funny and poignant picture of the larger human story.