Movie Trailers

• Directors: Richard Curtis
• Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Duncan Kenworthy
• Writers: Richard Curtis
• Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Actors: Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson, Laura Linney, Martine McCutcheon

The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David’s voiceover also relates that all the known messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the ‘love stories’ of many people, culminating in a final scene at the airport enacted to the tune of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” that closes their stories. The film ends with a montage of anonymous persons greeting their arriving loved ones that slowly enlarges and fills the screen, eventually forming the shape of a heart.

With the help of his longtime manager Joe (Gregor Fisher), aging rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records a Christmas variation of The Troggs’ classic hit “Love Is All Around.” Despite his honest admission that it is a “festering turd of a record,” the singer promotes the release in the hope it will become the Christmas number one single. During his publicity tour, Billy repeatedly causes Joe grief by pulling stunts such as defacing a poster of rival musicians Blue with a speech bubble reading, “We’ve got little pricks.” He also promises to perform his song naked on television should it hit the top spot. Mack keeps his word—albeit while wearing boots and holding a strategically placed guitar. After briefly celebrating his victory at a party hosted by Sir Elton John, Billy unexpectedly arrives at Joe’s flat and explains that Christmas is a time to be with the people you love, and that he had just realized that “the people I love… is you”, despite simultaneously hitting Joe with insulting comments about his weight. He reminds Joe that “We have had a wonderful ride” touring around the world together over the years. He suggests that the two celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and watching porn. Billy and Joe’s story is the only one exploring platonic love, and the two characters are unrelated to any of the other characters in film, although a few of the other characters are shown watching Billy Mack on their TVs or listening to his song on the radio.

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Rufus is a minor but significant character played by Rowan Atkinson. He is the Selfridges jewellery salesman whose obsessive attention to gift-wrapping nearly gets Harry caught buying Mia’s necklace, and later at the airport, his distraction of an attendant allows Sam to sneak through security and see Joanna before she goes back to America. In the original script, the character was revealed to be an angel, and the airport scene showed him disappearing as he walked through the crowd, but this aspect of the character was removed, although he does give Daniel a wink indicating he knows he is giving Sam cover to slip through. Richard Curtis says that with all the storylines already complicating the movie, “the idea of introducing another layer of supernatural beings” seemed over-the-top.[1]

• Directors: Gore Verbinski
• Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer
• Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
• Actors: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Chow Yun Fat, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Naomie Harris, Tom Hollander, Jack Davenport

Lord Cutler Beckett executes anyone suspected of or associated with piracy. Beckett, who now possesses Davy Jones’s heart, orders Jones to destroy all pirate ships. Condemned prisoners sing a song to compel the nine pirate lords comprising the (fourth) Brethren Court to convene at Shipwreck Cove. However, Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate lord of the Caribbean, never appointed his successor, and therefore must attend. Captain Barbossa leads Will, Elizabeth, Tia Dalma, and the Black Pearl crewmen to rescue Jack. Sao Feng, pirate lord of the South China Sea, possesses a map to the entrance to Davy Jones’s Locker, where Jack is imprisoned. The British Royal Navy, led by Mercer, attack Feng’s bathhouse. During the battle, Will bargains with Feng for the Pearl in exchange for Sparrow, so Will can rescue his father from The Flying Dutchman.

The crew journeys into the Locker and successfully retrieves Sparrow. As The Black Pearl seeks an escape route, dead souls are seen floating by underwater. Tia Dalma reveals that Davy Jones was appointed by Calypso, Goddess of the Sea and his lover, to ferry the dead to the next world. In return, Jones was allowed to step upon land for one day every ten years to be with his love; but when she failed to meet him, the scorned captain abandoned his duty and transformed into a monster. Governor Swann, now dead, reveals that whoever stabs Jones’s heart becomes the Dutchman’s immortal captain.

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Will is bound to sail the sea as The Flying Dutchman’s captain. Will and Elizabeth have one day together where they consummate their marriage. He departs at sunset, but first gives Elizabeth the Dead Man’s Chest. Barbossa commandeers the Pearl, stranding Jack and Gibbs in Tortuga. Having anticipated Barbossa’s deception, Sparrow removed the map’s middle that shows the path to the Fountain of Youth. Jack departs the trilogy just as he entered, alone in a dinghy on the open sea. Ten years later, Elizabeth and her son Will,[2] stand atop a seacliff; The Flying Dutchman appears on the horizon with Will Turner aboard.

• Directors: Gurinder Chadha
• Producers: Gurinder Chadha, Deepak Nayar
• Writers: Gurinder Chadha, Guljit Bindra, Paul Mayeda Berges
• Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sport
• Actors: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupam Kher, Shaznay Lewis, Archie Panjabi

18-year-old Jessmindar “Jess” Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is a Punjabi Sikh living in the western suburbs of London. Jess’ father (Anupam Kher) and mother (Shaheen Khan) are Punjabi immigrants living in the United Kingdom who work at the nearby Heathrow Airport. Jess’ parents push her towards academic achievement in the hope that she will achieve the financial success that evaded them. Their goal is for her to attend university and become a doctor. However, Jess only dreams of becoming a professional football player. She expresses her dreams by secretly confiding to a poster in her bedroom of her idol, football star David Beckham (contrasted with her parent’s veneration of a portrait of the Sikhism founder, Guru Nanak Dev Ji) and by playing football in the park with her best friend, Tony (Ameet Chana).

One day, while playing in the park, Jess is spotted by Juliette “Jules” Paxton (Keira Knightley), an English girl who plays for the Hounslow Harriers (a local amateur women’s football team), and Mel (Shaznay Lewis), the captain of the team. When asked, Jess happily joins the club even though she knows her parents will disapprove. She becomes a key member of the team and also befriends her Irish coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who was forced to quit playing football after a knee injury. Although both Jules and Jess have a crush on him, Joe attempts to remain professional and distance himself. However, he and Jess are eventually drawn to each other. A feud grows between Jess and Jules when Jules walks in on Joe and a slightly intoxicated Jess about to kiss after a night out at a club.

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The final scene of the film shows Jess’ sister, heavily pregnant and happy in her marriage, showing her mother-in-law some new baby clothes (her mother is now in a much better relationship with her); Jess’ father is teaching Joe how to play cricket (a sport at which he shows little potential) and a genial relationship has developed between them.

• Directors: John Maybury
• Producers:
• Writers: Sharman Macdonald
• Genres: Biography, Drama, Romance, War
• Actors: Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys

The story is based loosely on real events and people. During World War II, Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) runs into her first love, charismatic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), and their feelings for each other are renewed, despite that Dylan is now married to the spirited Caitlin MacNamara (Sienna Miller). Despite their rivalry, the two women become friends and the trio have happy times together. When Vera marries soldier William Killick (Cillian Murphy), Dylan becomes jealous at the addition of him to the group, and Caitlin notices. But William is soon deployed abroad, and the remaining trio moves to the Welsh countryside, where Vera’s feelings for Dylan intensify. When William comes home from the war, his jealousy compounded by his traumatic experiences explodes and he shoots up the house Dylan is staying in.[3]

• Directors: Antoine Fuqua
• Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer
• Writers: David Franzoni
• Genres: Action, Adventure, History, War
• Actors: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Ioan Gruffudd, Mads Mikkelsen, Joel Edgerton, Ray Winstone, Stephen Dillane, Til Schweiger

Arthur, also known as Artorius Castus (Clive Owen), is portrayed as a Roman cavalry officer, the son of a Roman father and a Celtic mother, who leads a military force of Sarmatian auxiliary cavalry in Britain at the close of the Roman occupation in 467 A.D. He and his men guard Hadrian’s Wall against the Woads, a Celtic people who resist Roman rule, based on the historical Picts,[2] led by the mysterious Merlin. He is not the first Arthur â€” for generations, his ancestors have manned the Wall, leading Sarmatian auxiliaries.

As the film starts, Arthur and his remaining knights Lancelot (whose voiceover is heard at the beginning and end), Bors, Tristan, Gawain, Galahad and Dagonet – are expecting discharge from the service of the Empire after faithfully serving for 15 years (Lancelot’s entry into service as a youth in 452 A.D. is depicted at the very beginning of the film). However, on the night they ought to receive their freedom, they are dispatched on a final and possibly suicidal mission by Bishop Germanius in the freezing winter to rescue the important Roman family of Marius Honorius, his wife, and their son, Alecto, who is the Pope’s favorite “godson” (and, according to Bishop Germanius, may be “destined to be Pope one day”), from impending capture by the invading Saxons, who are led by their chief Cerdic and his son Cynric. The knights are charged with this rescue because Rome is withdrawing from Britain, it now being considered an indefensible outpost.

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The film ends with Arthur and Guinevere’s marriage. Merlin then proclaims him to be their king. King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and his remaining knights promise to lead the Britons, united with the defeat of the Saxons and retreat of the Romans, against future invaders. The last scene shows Lancelot, Dagonet and Tristan reincarnated as horses and roaming the lands freely, while Lancelot speaks of the fact that their names will live forever in legend.

• Directors: Gore Verbinski
• Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer
• Writers: Characters, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert, Screenplay, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
• Actors: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Naomie Harris, Jack Davenport, Tom Hollander

The East India Trading Company arrives in Port Royal, Jamaica, to extend its monopoly in the Caribbean and purge piracy from its waters. Leading the expansion is Lord Cutler Beckett, a powerful and ruthless EITC agent who arrests Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner as they are about to be married. Beckett threatens to execute them and the absent ex-Commodore James Norrington for aiding Captain Jack Sparrow’s escape, but he offers clemency if Will agrees to hunt for Sparrow and his magical compass which points to what its possessor wants most. An informant in Tortuga leads Will to the Black Pearl run aground on Pelegosto, a cannibal-inhabited island where Jack and his crew are captive. Jack hid there after “Bootstrap Bill” Turner, Jack’s former crewmate and now an indentured sailor aboard Captain Davy Jones’ ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman, delivered Jack the Black Spot, a mark signifying his debt to Jones is due. Thirteen years before, Jones raised the Pearl from the ocean depths and made Jack its captain. In exchange, Jack must now serve aboard the Dutchman for 100 years.

Will, Jack, and a few crew members escape their captors, unexpectedly recruiting Pintel and Ragetti along the way, and head for sea. Will learns that Jack has been searching for a particular key. He agrees to give Will the compass if he helps him find the key and the object it unlocks. Seeking assistance from Tia Dalma, an obeah priestess, Jack learns the compass fails to work because he does not know what he truly wants. The key, Tia tells him, unlocks the Dead Man’s Chest containing Davy Jones’ still-beating heart—to avoid lost love’s pain, Jones carved the heart from his chest and buried it. Whoever possesses the heart controls Davy Jones, thereby controlling the world’s oceans. Back at sea, the Dutchman encounters Sparrow, who deviously attempts to barter Will in exchange for himself. Jones demands 100 souls within three days in exchange for Jack’s freedom and keeps Will as a “good faith payment,” leaving Jack only 99 more souls to harvest.

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Davy Jones declares Jack’s debt settled, although he becomes enraged when he discovers an empty Dead Man’s Chest. Meanwhile, Norrington makes his way to Port Royal and delivers the heart and the Letters of Marque to Cutler Beckett. Elizabeth, Will, and the surviving Pearl crew seek refuge with Tia Dalma, who asks if they would be willing to save Jack from Davy Jones’ Locker. When all agree, Tia Dalma sends them on a journey to World’s End to rescue Jack, saying they will need a captain who knows those waters—the resurrected Captain Barbossa.

• Directors: Joe Wright 1
• Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster 1
• Writers: Novel, Ian McEwan, Screenplay, Christopher Hampton
• Genres: Drama, Mystery, Romance, War
• Actors: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave

The film comprises four parts, corresponding to the four parts of the novel. Some scenes are shown several times from different perspectives.

Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) is a 13-year-old girl from a wealthy English family, the youngest of three, and an aspiring writer. Her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) is educated at Cambridge University alongside Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of their housekeeper (Brenda Blethyn), whose school fees are paid by Cecilia’s father. Though Robbie is headed for medical school soon, he is spending the summer gardening on the Tallis estate. The ginger-haired Lola Quincey (Juno Temple), age fifteen, and her younger twin brothers, Jackson and Pierrot (Felix and Charlie von Simson), are cousins of Briony and Cecilia who are visiting the family amidst their parents’ divorce. Lastly, Leon (Patrick Kennedy) â€“ Briony and Cecilia’s brother â€“ brings home a friend named Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch), who owns a chocolate factory that is acquiring a contract to produce army rations. The Tallis family is planning a special dinner, to which Leon happily invites Robbie, who accepts, much to Cecilia’s annoyance.

Briony has just finished writing a play entitled The Trials of Arabella, which she describes being as about “the complications of love”.[4] Her cousins, however, are being unmanageable about staging the play, and she is considerably frustrated. Alone in her bedroom, she witnesses a significant moment of sexual tension between Robbie and her sister by the fountain, when her sister strips down to her underwear and dips into the fountain, to retrieve the lost part of a vase that Robbie has clumsily broken. Because Briony cannot hear what the two are saying, and has witnessed only a fraction of the scene, she misunderstands its dynamics, and the seed of her misplaced distrust in Robbie is sown.

…

The film suddenly shifts forward to 1999, when an elderly Briony (Vanessa Redgrave), interviewed on television (by Anthony Minghella) about her latest novel Atonement, is overcome with emotion and memory. She reveals that she is dying of vascular dementia, and that this novel will be her last, but that it is also her first, as she has been drafting it intermittently since her time at St Thomas’s. Briony admits that the story is autobiographical and expresses great remorse at her actions. She admits that the end of the novel is, in fact, a fiction; in reality, both Robbie and Cecilia died before Briony could make amends, Robbie succumbing to septicemia the day before the evacuation at Dunkirk, and Cecilia perishing in the Ballham Tube Station flooding. Briony explains that she has altered the ending to give her sister and Robbie the chance at the happiness they both deserved, and which she took away from them. The film closes with a scene of a simple, seaside bliss between Cecilia and Robbie, together at long last. The scenery of the English cliff-side beach around them echoes that from a postcard that Cecilia gave Robbie on his departure for duty, as a promise that they would be together someday.