Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Dracula, who operates a high-end resort away from the human world, goes into overprotective mode when a boy discovers the resort and falls for the count's teen-aged daughter. 

 Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Writers: Peter Baynham (screenplay), Robert Smigel (screenplay)

Stars: Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Andy Samberg

Cast:

• Adam Sandler as Dracula, the Hotel Transylvania owner, and Mavis' over-protective father.
• Selena Gomez as Mavis, Dracula's 118 year old "teenage" daughter.
• Andy Samberg as Jonathan/Jonny/Jonny-stein, a 21-year-old regular guy who stumbled onto Hotel Transylvania.
• Kevin James as Frank/Frankenstein, the lovable fire-hating monster.
• Cee Lo Green as Murray, an obese mummy
• Steve Buscemi as Wayne, a werewolf
• Molly Shannon as Wanda, a werewolf and Wayne's pregnant wife
• David Spade as Griffin the Invisible Man
• Fran Drescher as Eunice, Frankenstein's wife
• Jon Lovitz as Quasimodo Wilson, the former Hunchback of Notre-Dame who now works as a gourmet chef that desires to make a dish where humans are the main ingredients. He is always accompanied by his pet rat Esmeralda who is known to sniff out any humans.
• Luenell as Mavis' Shrunken Head
• Chris Parnell as Fly
• Brian George as Suit of Armor, a living suit of armor that works as the head of the Suit of Armors that make up the Hotel's security guards.
• Brian Stack as Pilot
• Jackie Sandler as Martha, Dracula's wife and Mavis' mother who was killed by humans while Mavis was still young.
• Sadie Sandler as Young Mavis, Winnie
• Rob Riggle as Skeleton Husband
• Paul Brittain as Zombie
• Robert Smigel as Fake Dracula, Marty
• Jonny Solomon as Gremlin Man
• Jim Wise as Shrunken Head
• Brian McCann as Hairy Monster
• James C.J. Williams as Foreman

Hydra heads voiced by Paul Brittain, Craig Kellman, Tom Kenny, Brian McCann, Jonny Solomon, and Jim Wise.

Production: 

Hotel Transylvania has been in development since 2006, when Anthony Stacchi and David Feiss were set to direct the film. In 2008, Jill Culton took over the directing position, and around 2010, Chris Jenkin, followed by Todd Wilderman. In 2011, Genndy Tartakovsky took over as the sixth director to direct his feature directorial debut.
In less than a year, Tartakovsky rewrote the script and reimagined the film to follow the energy, organic-ness and exaggeration of the 2D animation, particularly of the Tex Avery's cartoons. "I took all the aesthetics I like from 2-D and applied them here," Tartakovsky said. "I don't want to do animation to mimic reality. I want to push reality" "I wanted to have an imprint so you'd go, 'Well, only Genndy can make this.' It's hard, especially with CG, but I feel there's a lot of moments that feel that they're very me, so hopefully it'll feel different enough that it has a signature to it.
In November 2011, it was announced that Miley Cyrus would voice Mavis, Dracula's teenage daughter, but in February 2012, Cyrus left the film . It was later announced that Selena Gomez would replace Cyrus.

Plot:


Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) is the owner and creator of Hotel Transylvania, a five-star resort where the world's monsters can be safe from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters like Frankenstein's Monster (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Bigfoot, Steve the Blob, and other monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez). However, Mavis prefers to explore the outside world with her father's permission, but the village he directs her to is actually an elaborate deception to convince her of the threat of humans enough to coax her back.
However, this charade inadvertently attracts the attention of an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan (voiced by Andy Samberg) who was exploring the surrounding forest and he follows the staff to the hotel. Once Jonathan enters the hotel, Dracula frantically attempts to hide him from the patrons such as disguising him as a Flesh Golem named Johhny-stein with the later hasty cover story of being a relative of one of Frank's body parts. Eventually, Jonathan is discovered by Mavis and company, forcing Dracula to claim he is going to arrange Mavis' birthday party with a young perspective. In doing so, Jonathan manages to liven up the staid activities at the hotel, charming everyone, especially Mavis. Eventually, even Dracula begins to like the human taking him into his confidence about his family's traumatic past after the vampire notices the young man knows something about them in a respectful manner.
Unfortunately, Chef Quasimodo Wilson (Jon Lovitz) realizes Jonathan is human and captures him to cook him, forcing Dracula to directly intervene by magically paralyzing the chef. Eventually, the birthday party happens and it is a raucous success until Dracula overreacts to Mavis and Jonathan's innocent kiss. Dracula, in his ranting, lets it slip that he tricked Mavis at the fake village and Mavis is outraged at being manipulated by her own father. Things get worse when Chef Quasimodo breaks out of the spell and interrupts the party and reveals Jonathan's true nature. Even as the clientele are revolted, Mavis still accepts and expresses her desire to be with Jonathan even though he is human. For his part, Jonathan feels obliged to reject Mavis for her father's sake and leaves the hotel. Afterward, Dracula realizes that in his efforts to protect Mavis, he has broken her heart and now she tearfully wants to stay at the hotel forever.

Wishing to undo his mistake, Dracula persuades his friends to help him find Jonathan and even risks his destruction by venturing out in the daylight to do so. Learning that Jonathan is about to board a flight out of Transylvania Airport shortly, they race on and enter a town en route. At that town, Dracula and company are stunned to see the humans celebrating a monster holiday with many humans costumed as the monsters in tribute. To clear a path, Frankenstein tries to scare them, but finds the humans are cheerfully welcoming them instead and even provide a shaded route through the town for Dracula to proceed at maximum speed.
However, Dracula finds that he is too late with Jonathan's plane taking off. With no alternative, Dracula desperately flies after it in broad daylight despite being hurt by the sun. With much effort, Dracula manages to reach the plane and resorts to mind-controlling one of the pilots (Brian Stack) to apologize and tell Jonathan that he wants him to return to be with his daughter. Jonathan accepts Dracula's apology and Dracula manipulates the plane back to the airport.
Later, Dracula returns Jonathan to Mavis, who tells her that she's his 'zing' and the reason why he had to reject her. Dracula gives his blessing to their relationship, Jonathan and Mavis kiss and the hotel has another party to celebrate his daughter's liberating coming of age before Jonathan and Mavis set off on their travels.
The film ends with Dracula and his friends being shown in traditional animation (in the style of Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons) during the credits.

Looper (2012)

In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe, who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting back Joe's future self. 

 Director: Rian Johnson

Writer: Rian Johnson

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt

Cast:

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Young Joe
• Bruce Willis as Old Joe
• Emily Blunt as Sara
• Paul Dano as Young Seth
• Noah Segan as Kid Blue
• Piper Perabo as Suzie
• Jeff Daniels as Abe
• Pierce Gagnon as Cid
• Xu Qing as Old Joe's Wife
• Tracie Thoms as Beatrix
• Frank Brennan as Old Seth
• Garret Dillahunt as Jesse
• Nick Gomez as Dale
• Marcus Hester as Zach

Production:

Looper was written and directed by Rian Johnson. After Johnson released The Brothers Bloom in 2008, he re-teamed with producer Ram Bergman, who produced Johnson's previous two films, with the goal of starting production of Looper in 2009. In May 2010, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast in one of the lead roles, which he would play after completing Premium Rush.Later in the month, Bruce Willis was also cast. In the following October, Emily Blunt joined Gordon-Levitt and WillisNoah Segan, Jeff Daniels, and Piper Perabo were cast in January 2011

Filming began in Louisiana on January 24, 2011

Makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji created the prosthetics that Gordon-Levitt wore in the film so that he would physically resemble Willis.

Talking about Looper and time travel in film, Johnson said:

"Even though it's a time-travel movie, the pleasure of it doesn't come from the mass of time travel. It's not a film like Primer, for instance, where the big part of the enjoyment is kind of working out all the intricacies of it. For Looper, I very much wanted it to be a more character-based movie that is more about how these characters dealt with the situation time travel has brought about. So the biggest challenge was figuring out how to not spend the whole movie explaining the rules and figure out how to put it out there in a way that made sense on some intuitive level for the audience; then get past it and deal with the real meat of the story.

Plot:

In 2044, the United States has suffered economic collapse, causing severe social decay and growth in organized crime. In addition, a mutation has occurred in ten percent of the population giving them telekinetic powers—the ability to levitate small objects. Thirty years further into the future in 2074, time travel is invented, but is immediately outlawed. Tracking technology has rendered it nearly impossible to dispose of bodies secretly, so crime bosses use illicit time travel to send those they want killed to the past where they are killed by "loopers": assassins paid with silver bars strapped to the victim. When crime bosses want to end a looper's contract, they send his present self back to be killed by his younger self, referred to as "closing the loop". Failing a contract is a death sentence.
In 2044, Joe Simmons works for a mafia company in Kansas as a looper. His boss Abe was sent from the future to manage the loopers and also owns a club that Joe frequents, and where he spends time with Suzie, a showgirl. Abe controls his own group of hired muscle, the "Gat Men", including the unstable Kid Blue, who is desperate to prove himself to Abe. One night, Joe's friend Seth visits him and tells him that he was supposed to close his own loop, but hesitated. Before Seth's future self escaped, he mentioned the Rainmaker, a mastermind who has taken over future organized crime and is closing all loops. Joe attempts to protect Seth, but later chooses to betray him to Abe instead of surrendering half of his silver savings, which he has stashed secretly for retirement instead of cashing in. The mafia mutilate Seth's body so that his future self will sustain the same wounds as scars. As Old Seth begins losing body parts, he arrives at a location that had been scarred on his arm by the mafia, and they kill him.
During another contract Joe hesitates when he recognizes the target is his future self, allowing him to escape. After meeting in a diner, Old Joe tells Joe that the Rainmaker sent him back to be killed, and that Old Joe's wife was killed during his capture. Old Joe killed his captors and traveled back to kill the Rainmaker as a child. Joe attempts to kill Old Joe and fulfill his contract, but both of them flee when they are attacked by the Gat Men. Joe tears a scrap off a map from Old Joe's possession, bearing a marked location and a string of digits.
Joe follows the map to a farmhouse owned by Sara, who lives with her son Cid. When Joe shows Sara the map, Sara recognizes the digits as Cid's birthday and the serial number of the hospital he was born in, prompting Joe to explain the situation about the Rainmaker. The database Old Joe used with the string of digits produced three possible children born on the same day in the same hospital, and he intends to kill all three.
As Joe and Sara become close, he learns that she is a telekinetic, and that Cid was raised by Sara's sister for most of his life until she was killed. Cid does not believe that Sara is his real mother. One morning, they are attacked by Gat Man Jesse, who is killed when Cid falls down the stairs and lets out a telekinetic blast. His extraordinary telekinetic abilities cause Joe to believe that Cid is the Rainmaker, and Sara confirms that her sister was killed by Cid when he lost control of his powers. Meanwhile, Old Joe is captured by Kid Blue.
Joe tells Sara and Cid to flee, surmising that his employers or Old Joe will target the farm. Meanwhile Old Joe breaks free, killing Abe and all the Gat Men except for Kid Blue. As the two Joes confront each other near Sara's house, Kid Blue attacks and is killed by young Joe. Old Joe escapes during the attack, then finds and attempts to kill Cid, prompting Cid to let out another telekinetic blast. However, before Cid can kill Old Joe, Sara calms him down and assures him mother is here. Old Joe tries to kill Cid again, but Sara stands between them. Joe realizes that if Old Joe kills Sara, it will lead to Cid becoming the Rainmaker due to his tormented childhood, thus creating a closed time loop. Joe kills himself, erasing Old Joe from existence and saving Sara and Cid.

 

Sinister (2012)

Found footage helps a true-crime novelist realize how and why a family was murdered in his new home, though his discoveries put his entire family in the path of a supernatural entity. 

Director: Scott Derrickson

Writers: Scott Derrickson (screenplay), C. Robert Cargill

Stars: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance and James Ransone 

Cast:

• Ethan Hawke as Ellison Oswalt
• Juliet Rylance as Tracy Oswalt
• Clare Foley as Ashley Oswalt
• Michael Hall D'Addario as Trevor Oswalt
• Fred Thompson as Sheriff
• James Ransone as Deputy
• Vincent D'Onofrio as Professor Jonas

Production:

Shooting for Sinister began in fall of 2011, with Ethan Hawke and Juliet Rylance signing on to star in the film

Plot:

The film opens on Super 8 footage where a family of four are standing under a tree with bags over their heads and nooses around their necks. An unseen figure saws a tree limb acting as a counterweight with a rake, and cuts it off, sending the family up, strangling them.
Months later, true-crime novelist Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) moves into the same house as the murdered family with his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), and their two children Ashley (Clare Foley) and Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario). Ellison uses the murders as the basis for his new book. Supposedly, there were five members in the family, and one of the children went missing after the murders.
Ellison finds a box in the attic, which contains a projector and several reels of Super 8 footage that are each labeled as if innocent home movies. He watches the films, all depicting families murdered in various ways, including having their throats slit in bed (Sleepy Time), an arson (BBQ), being drowned in their pool (Pool Party), being run over by a lawn mower (Lawn Work) and the hanging that opened the movie (Hanging Out). The drowning one proves especially disturbing for him, as he sees a dark figure with a demonic face. Upon seeing this figure, strange things begin happening around the house. Ellison continues to observe the films, and discovers strange things in them, such as a strange symbol painted near the murders, and the demonic figure, which begins to show up in every film.
He calls a deputy (James Ransone) to help him find the location of these murders. After going through the images, the deputy refers him to a religion college professor, Jonas (Vincent D'Onofrio), to decipher the symbol in the films. Jonas tells Ellison that the symbol is that of a Pagan deity named Bughuul, who was known as an eater of children's souls, killing the families of the child and then taking the child to his own netherworld. One night, Ellison hears the film projector running and goes up to the attic. He finds five children (all of whom were the missing from each family after they were murdered) watching one of the films. When Bughuul suddenly appears in front of him, Ellison falls from the attic. Having had enough, he burns the projector and the film and moves out with his family. Upon returning to their old house, he goes into the attic and finds the box containing the projector and film, completely unharmed. However, there is a new item inside: an envelope with "extended endings." Within that, Ellison finds that after each murder took place, the missing child would come onscreen, revealing them to be the murderers, and then disappear.
Ellison again chats with Professor Jonas, who sends him scans of rare historical drawings of the mysterious symbol and explains that Bughuul would supposedly appear in the images, which acted as portals between his realm and the mortal realm.
Shortly after, the deputy, whose repeated calls Ellison had been ignoring all day, calls again and this time Ellison picks up. The deputy informs him that he has discovered the link between the murders: each family had last lived in the house where the previous murder had taken place. By moving out of the house, the deputy continues, he has put himself and his family in place to continue the pattern. Ellison begins feeling light-headed. He looks in his empty coffee cup and finds a mysterious liquid left behind, then notices the note that was under his cup from his daughter and loses consciousness.
Upon waking, he finds himself, his wife and son bound and gagged. Ashley walks in, carrying an axe and a Super 8 camera. She then documents the grisly murders of her father, mother, and brother, and paints the walls in their blood, with several childish images such as unicorns, cats and dogs . She then goes to the projector and plays the film she just took, revealing the children in the hallway. Upon Bughuul's appearance, the children run away. Bughuul picks up Ashley and walks into the film with her.
The final shot shows the box of film in the attic of the Oswalt house, this time with a new canister that reads "House painting '12".