Movies!!

Never Back Down.

Plot:Jake Tyler has recently moved to Orlando, Florida with his family to support his younger brother's shot at a professional tennis career. Jake was a star athlete on the football team at home, but in this new city he is an outsider with a reputation for being a quick tempered brawler. Making an attempt to fit in, at the invitation of a flirtatious classmate, Baja, Jake goes to a party where he is unwittingly pulled into a fight with a bully named Ryan McCarthy. While he is defeated and humiliated in the fight, a classmate, who later becomes one of his best friends introduces himself to Jake and tells him about the sport known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). He sees a star in Jake and asks that he meet with his mentor, Jean Roqua. It is immediately apparent to Jake that MMA is not street fighting, but rather an art form he wants to master. Roqua will take Jake under his wing, but it is up to Jake to find the patience, discipline, willingness and reason within him to succeed. For Jake, there is much more at stake than mere victory. His decision will not just settle a score; it will define who he is. wikipedia.com

Transformers 2.

Plot: It is revealed that thousands of years ago there was a race of ancient Transformers who scoured the universe looking for energon sources. Known as the Dynasty of Primes, they used machines called Sun Harvesters to drain stars of their energy in order to convert it to energon and power Cybertron's AllSpark. The Primes agreed that life-bearing worlds would be spared, but in 17,000 BC, one brother, thereafter dubbed "The Fallen", constructed a Sun Harvester on Earth. The remaining brothers thus sacrificed their bodies in order to hide the Matrix of Leadership—the key that activates the Sun Harvester—from The Fallen, who swore to seek revenge upon Earth. In the present day, two years after the events of the previous film, Optimus Prime is seen leading NEST, a military organization consisting of human troops and his own team of Autobots (including newcomers Arcee, Chromia, Elita One, Sideswipe, Jolt, and the twins Skids and Mudflap) aimed at killing the remaining Decepticons on Earth. While on a mission in Shanghai, Optimus and his team destroy Decepticons Sideways and Demolishor, being given a warning by the latter that "The Fallen will rise again". Back in the United States, Sam Witwicky finds a splinter of the destroyed AllSpark, and upon contact the splinter fills his mind with Cybertronian symbols. Deeming it dangerous, Sam gives the AllSpark splinter to his girlfriend Mikaela Banes for safe keeping, and leaves her and Bumblebee behind to go off to college. Upon arrival, Sam meets his college roommate Leo Spitz, who runs an alien conspiracy website, and Alice, a co-ed who makes sexual advances on him. Back home, Decepticon Wheelie tries to steal the shard, only to be captured by Mikaela. After having a mental breakdown, uncontrollably writing in Cybertronian language, Sam calls Mikaela, who immediately leaves to get to him. Decepticon Soundwave hacks into a US satellite and learns the locations of the dead Decepticon leader Megatron and another piece of the AllSpark. The Decepticons retrieve the shard and use it to resurrect Megatron, who flies into space and is reunited with Starscream and his master, The Fallen in the Nemesis. The Fallen instructs Megatron and Starscream to capture Sam in order to discover the location of the Matrix of Leadership. With Sam's outbreaks worsening, Mikaela arrives at campus just as Alice—revealed to be a Decepticon Pretender—attacks Sam. An irate Mikaela, Sam, and his roommate Leo drive off, destroying Alice, but are seized by the Decepticon Grindor. The Decepticon known as "The Doctor" prepares to remove Sam's brain, but Optimus and Bumblebee turn up and rescue him. In an ensuing fight, Optimus engages Megatron, Grindor and Starscream. Optimus manages to kill Grindor and rip off Starscream's arm, but during a momentary distraction while searching for Sam, he is blindsided then impaled and blasted through the chest by Megatron and dies. Megatron and Starscream depart as the Autobot team arrives to rescue Sam, unable to save Optimus. After Prime's death, The Fallen is freed from his captivity and Megatron orders a full-scale assault on the planet. The Fallen speaks to the world and demands they surrender Sam to the Decepticons or they will continue their attack. Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Bumblebee, the twins and Wheelie regroup, and Leo suggests his online rival "Robo-Warrior" may be of assistance. "Robo-Warrior" is revealed to be former Sector 7 agent Simmons, who informs the group that the symbols should be readable for a Decepticon. Mikaela then releases Wheelie, who can't read the language, but identifying it as that of the Primes, directs the group to a Decepticon seeker named Jetfire. They then find Jetfire at the F. Udvar-Hazy Center and reactivate him via the shard of the AllSpark. After teleporting the group to Egypt, Jetfire explains that only a Prime can kill The Fallen, and translates the symbols, which contain a riddle that sets the location of the Matrix of Leadership somewhere in the surrounding desert. By following the clues, the group arrive at the tomb where they ultimately find the Matrix, but it crumbles to dust in Sam's hands. Believing the Matrix can still revive Optimus, Sam collects the dust and instructs Simmons to call Major William Lennox to bring the other Autobots and Optimus's body. The military arrives with the Autobots, but so do the Decepticons, and a battle ensues. During the fight, Decepticon Devastator is formed and unearths the Sun Harvester from inside one of the pyramids before being destroyed by the US military with the help of agent Simmons. Jetfire arrives and destroys Mixmaster, but is mortally wounded by Scorponok. The Air Force bombs the Decepticons, but Megatron breaks through the offensive and kills Sam. While dead, Sam is contacted by the Dynasty of the Primes who, acknowledging his courage and dedication to Optimus, revive him and rebuild the Matrix of Leadership. Sam goes on to revive Optimus just in time before the Fallen ambushed him and his allies, slaughtering a few soldiers and takes off with the Matrix to activate the harvester. Jetfire sacrifices himself to have Optimus use his parts to fly to the harvester and successfully destroys it. Then Optimus engages the Fallen in the ruins and kills him by punching through the chest and ripping his spark out. Although the battle was over, Megatron refuses to surrender by fleeing back to the Nemesis with Starscream. The film ends with Optimus alongside Sam on an aircraft carrier, sending a message into space saying that the humans and Transformers both share a common past. During the credits, Sam is seen returning to college. /wikipedia.com

What Dreams May Come.

Plot:After meeting on a lake in Switzerland, Chris Nielsen and Annie Collins marry, having two children: Ian (Josh Paddock) and Marie (Jessica Brooks Grant). Years later, after Ian and Marie are killed in a car accident, Annie becomes mentally unstable and attempts suicide. She is institutionalized, and although the couple nearly divorce as a result (Chris wanting the divorce much more than Annie, not sharing the depth of her grief at their loss), they reconcile and she eventually recovers. However, on the anniversary of the day the couple decided not to divorce (which they call their "Double-D" anniversary) Chris is involved in a car accident, dying a short time later. For a time, Chris attempts to influence life on Earth, specifically trying to communicate to Annie that he's still there, watching over her. However, after seeing that being around her as a ghost only causes her pain, he gives up and heads for the afterlife. Chris awakens in Heaven, adjusting to his new self-manifesting fantasy environment with the guidance of a man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) whom Chris believes to be Albert, his friend and mentor from his medical residency. Both are surprised when a Blue Jacaranda tree appears in Chris's personal section of Heaven, which matches a tree in a new painting of Annie's. Albert indicates the couple are soul mates, receptive to each other's thoughts even after death. Later, Chris meets a woman named Leona who shows him a children's realm in Heaven. Chris recognizes her as Marie, after realizing the location is a diorama she loved in life, and Leona explaining that she took the form of an Asian woman because when they travelled to Singapore, her father smiled at an Asian stewardess with name tag writing |Leona|. He told the daughter that Asian women were lovely, graceful and smart. Since then the daughter always wanted to be like that. In parallel to this, Annie, distraught at the loss of her entire family, kills herself with poison. Albert breaks the news to Chris, whose initial relief that her suffering is over quickly turns to anger when he learns that suicides are sent to Hell. Albert claims no judgment has been made against her by God; it is simply the nature of suicides to create "anti-fantasy" worlds based on their psychological pain, similar but opposite to Chris' fantasy world in Heaven. This is a reference to Dante's Inferno, where the seventh level of Hell is reserved for sins of violence — including violence against oneself. Chris is adamant that he will rescue Annie from Hell, despite Albert's insistence that no one has ever succeeded in doing so. Chris is undaunted, and Albert eventually agrees to find Chris a "Tracker" to help find Annie's soul. Journeying to Hell and encountering hundreds of damned souls (one of which is a cameo by German director Werner Herzog) Chris finds himself recalling memories of his son, Ian. Chris had been disappointed with Ian's underachievement but eventually, after an earnest conversation, told him "if I was going through fucking hell, I'd only want one person in the whole goddamn world by my side." Seeing Albert about to confront a violent group of damned, Chris realizes Albert is actually Ian. Ian explains that he chose to appear as Albert because he was the only person Chris would ever listen to. Ian returns to Heaven, while Chris and the Tracker continue the search. Arriving at what the Tracker calls their "private deck", Chris finds a field full of the faces of the damned (a further reference to Dante's Inferno). Chris sees Annie's face but as he runs towards her, the ground gives way and he falls into a vast, upturned cathedral. Chris recognizes his and Annie's house at the bottom. The Tracker warns Chris that if he stays with Annie for more than a few minutes, he may become permanently trapped too. The Tracker then reveals that he is Albert, who has been waiting for many years to do Chris a favor. He fears, however, that all he can do is allow Chris to tell Annie goodbye, and "give up" on saving her. Chris enters the house to find Annie pale and withdrawn, still tortured by her loneliness and her surroundings. Chris is unable to make Annie recognize him and decides to "give up", but not in the way Albert had expected. He chooses to join Annie forever in Hell, even if she will never know who he is. This is the antithesis of his behavior when Annie was institutionalized, and his final words to her echoing that time enable Annie to finally "wake up" and recognize Chris (who is succumbing to Annie's hellish reality), and carry him with her to Heaven. Chris and Annie are reunited in Heaven with their children, but Chris suggests being reincarnated, so the pair can experience meeting and falling in love again, hopefully without the tragic ending. The film ends with Chris and Annie meeting as young children, in a rough parallel of their original meeting. The last line is a repetition of the opening line by Chris: "When I was young, I met this beautiful girl by a lake."

email Lacey at: DarlingLace14@live.com