The Bourne Identity (2002)

Freely adapted from Robert Ludlum's 1980 bestseller, The Bourne Identity starts fast and never slows down. The twisting plot revs up in Zurich, where amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), with no memory of his name, profession, or recent activities, recruits a penniless German traveler (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) to assist in solving the puzzle of his missing identity. While his CIA superior (Chris Cooper) dispatches assassins to kill Bourne and thus cover up his failed mission, Bourne exercises his lethal training to leave a trail of bodies from Switzerland to Paris. Director Doug Liman (Go) infuses Ludlum's intricate plotting with a maverick's eye for character detail, matching breathtaking action with the humorous, thrill-seeking chemistry of Damon and Potente. Previously made as a 1988 TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain, The Bourne Identity benefits from the sharp talent of rising stars, offering intelligent, crowd-pleasing excitement from start to finish. --Jeff Shannon
imdb.com/title/tt0258463

The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Good enough to suggest long-term franchise potential, The Bourne Supremacy is a thriller fans will appreciate for its well-crafted suspense, and for its triumph of competence over logic (or lack thereof). Picking up where The Bourne Identity left off, the action begins when CIA assassin and partial amnesiac Jason Bourne (a role reprised with efficient intensity by Matt Damon) is framed for a murder in Berlin, setting off a chain reaction of pursuits involving CIA handlers (led by Joan Allen and the duplicitous Brian Cox, with Julia Stiles returning from the previous film) and a shadowy Russian oil magnate. The fast-paced action hurtles from India to Berlin, Moscow, and Italy, director Paul Greengrass puts you right in the thick of it with split-second editing (too much of it, actually) and a knack for well-sustained tension. It doesn't all make sense, and bears little resemblance to Robert Ludlum's novel, but with Damon proving to be an appealingly unconventional action hero, there's plenty to look forward to. --Jeff Shannon
imdb.com/title/tt0372183

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Again with Matt Damon as Jason Bourne.
imdb.com/title/tt0440963

Today's theme is martial arts, and samurai.

Wo hu cang long (2000)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Description An epic set against the breathtaking landscapes of ancient China, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, combines the exhilarating martial arts choreography by Yuen Wo-Pind (The Matrix) with the sensitivity and classical storytelling of an Ang Lee film. The result is something truly unexpected: romantic, emotionally powerful entertainment.
Hong Kong wuxia films, or martial arts fantasies, traditionally squeeze poor acting, slapstick humor, and silly story lines between elaborate fight scenes in which characters can literally fly. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has no shortage of breathtaking battles, but it also has the dramatic soul of a Greek tragedy and the sweep of an epic romance. This is the work of director Ang Lee, who fell in love with movies while watching wuxia films as a youngster and made Crouching Tiger as a tribute to the form. To elevate the genre above its B-movie roots and broaden its appeal, Lee did two important things. First, he assembled an all-star lineup of talent, joining the famous Asian actors Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh with the striking, charismatic newcomer Zhang Ziyi. Behind the scenes, Lee called upon cinematographer Peter Pau (The Killer, The Bride with White Hair) and legendary fight choreographer Yuen Wo-ping, best known outside Asia for his work on The Matrix. Second, in adapting the story from a Chinese pulp-fiction novel written by Wang Du Lu, Lee focused not on the pursuit of a legendary sword known as "The Green Destiny," but instead on the struggles of his female leads against social obligation. In his hands, the requisite fight scenes become another means of expressing the individual spirits of his characters and their conflicts with society and each other.
The filming required an immense effort from all involved. Chow and Yeoh had to learn to speak Mandarin, which Lee insisted on using instead of Cantonese to achieve a more classic, lyrical feel. The astonishing battles between Jen (Zhang) and Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh) on the rooftops and Jen and Li Mu Bai (Chow) atop the branches of bamboo trees required weeks of excruciating wire and harness work (which in turn required meticulous "digital wire removal"). But the result is a seamless blend of action, romance, and social commentary in a populist film that, like its young star Zhang, soars with balletic grace and dignity. --Eugene Wei/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0190332

Unleashed (2005)

Also known as: Danny the dog (Hong Kong: English title)
This is the story of Danny, a slave who has lived his whole life without any sort of normal human education, with the mind and personality of a young child, with only one lesson learned: how to fight. Treated like a dog by his owner/boss, Bart which includes having to wear a collar, Danny has been raised to be a lethal fighting machine who fights in illegal gladiator-style fight clubs, where he earns lots of money for Bart as the undisputed champion. After a car accident that lands Bart in a coma, however, Danny meets a kind elderly blind piano tuner on the run because he knows secrets some bad guys don't want known, who uses music to teach Danny some things about the world and about being human...
Main actors are: Jet Li as Danny, Morgan Freeman as Sam the piano tuner, and Bob Hoskins as Bart.
imdb.com/title/tt0342258

The Last Samurai (2003)

Epic Action Drama. Set in Japan during the 1870s, The Last Samurai tells the story of Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first army in the art of modern warfare. As the Emperor attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his own sense of honor to guide him.

While Japan undergoes tumultuous transition to a more Westernized society in 1876-77, The Last Samurai gives epic sweep to an intimate story of cultures at a crossroads. In America, tormented Civil War veteran Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is coerced by a mercenary officer (Tony Goldwyn) to train the Japanese Emperor's troops in the use of modern weaponry. Opposing this "progress" is a rebellion of samurai warriors, holding fast to their traditions of honor despite strategic disadvantage. As a captive of the samurai leader (Ken Watanabe), Algren learns, appreciates, and adopts the samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone's honor to the ultimate test. All of which makes director Edward Zwick's noble epic eminently worthwhile, even if its Hollywood trappings (including an all-too-conventional ending) prevent it from being the masterpiece that Zwick and screenwriter John Logan clearly wanted it to be. Instead, The Last Samurai is an elegant mainstream adventure, impressive in all aspects of its production. It may not engage the emotions as effectively as Logan's script for Gladiator, but like Cruise's character, it finds its own quality of honor. --Jeff Shannon/amazon

DVD features
No actor works harder to open a movie than Tom Cruise. His enthusiasm is throughout the DVD extras as he mirrors his samurai character by constantly talking about "loyalty" and "discipline" while working on the film. However as a post-movie experience, the top-line extras with Cruise and director Edward Zwick are repetitive and underwhelming, with too many clips from the film we assume DVD viewers have just seen. The History Channel show is also a pre-release promotional device that misses an opportunity to really dig into this intriguing time period. Better are segments on the costumes, the production design, and how you put together an Imperial army--in New Zealand, no less. Zwick's low-key and dense commentary (plus a "Video Journal") is not vital, but he illustrates many of the little peculiarities it took to make the wide-ranging film come together. There are two deleted scenes; a samurai's first appearance is particularly memorable. --Doug Thomas/amazon

imdb.com/title/tt0325710

Theme: Prison and Death Row.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

When this popular prison drama was released in 1994, some critics complained that the movie was too long (142 minutes) to sustain its story. Those complaints miss the point, because the passage of time is crucial to this story about patience, the squeaky wheels of justice, and the growth of a life-long friendship. Only when the film reaches its final, emotionally satisfying scene do you fully understand why writer-director Frank Darabont (adapting a novella by Stephen King) allows the story to unfold at its necessary pace, and the effect is dramatically rewarding. Tim Robbins plays a banker named Andy who's sent to Shawshank Prison on a murder charge, but as he gets to know a life-term prisoner named Red (Morgan Freeman), we realize there's reason to believe the banker's crime was justifiable. We also realize that Andy's calm, quiet exterior hides a great reserve of patience and fortitude, and Red comes to admire this mild-mannered man who first struck him as weak and unfit for prison life. So it is that The Shawshank Redemption builds considerable impact as a prison drama that defies the conventions of the genre (violence, brutality, riots) to illustrate its theme of faith, friendship, and survival. Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor, and Screenplay, it's a remarkable film that signaled the arrival of a promising new filmmaker--a film that many movie lovers count among their all-time favorites. --Jeff Shannon/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0111161

The Green Mile (1999)

In the middle of the Depression, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) runs death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Into this dreary world walks a mammoth prisoner, John Coffey (Michael Duncan) who, very slowly, reveals a special gift that will change the men working and dying (in the electric chair, masterfully and grippingly staged) on the mile. As with King's book, Darabont takes plenty of time to show us Edgecomb's world before delving into John Coffey's mystery. With Darabont's superior storytelling abilities, his touch for perfect casting, and a leisurely 188-minute running time, his movie brings to life nearly every character and scene from the novel. Darabont even improves the novel's two endings, creating a more emotionally satisfying experience. The running time may try patience, but those who want a story, as opposed to quick-fix entertainment, will be rewarded by this finely tailored tale. --Doug Thomas/amazon
The story about the lives of guards on death row leading up to the execution of a wrongly accused man who has the power of faith healing.
imdb.com/title/tt0120689

The Life of David Gale (2003)

The crime is clear. The truth is not.
Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) stars with Oscar nominee Kate Winslet (Titanic) in a powerfully gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller hailed as 'provocative' (ABC-TV). An electrifying suspenseful journey into deadly conspiracy and murderous deception begins when a respected professor who may ' or may not ' be guilty is charged with a brutal crime. The Life of David Gale is a brilliantly unpredictable thriller, which builds relentlessly to a shocking final twist guaranteed to blow you away!
David Gale: "We spend our whole life trying to stop death. Eating, inventing, loving, praying, fighting, killing. But what do we really know about death? Just that nobody comes back. Then there comes a point - a moment - in life when your mind outlives its desires, its obsessions, when your habits survive your dreams, and when your losses... Maybe death is a gift. You want her. All I can tell you is that by this time tomorrow I'll be dead. I know when. I just cannot say why. You have 24 hours to find out."
imdb.com/title/tt0289992

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating. Only the third-act portrait of white intruders as morons feels overbearing, but even that leads to a terribly moving conclusion. Costner's direction is assured, the balance of action and intimacy is perfect--what more could anyone want outside of an unqualified masterpiece? --Tom Keogh/amazon

DVD features
Sadly, the Oscar®-winning cut of Kevin Costner's Western is nowhere to be found on this two-disc set. This "extended version" adds 58 minutes to the three-hour film, most of which was seen in TV airings. The extra hour is unique in the history of new versions of a great film; it neither wastes the viewer's time (JFK) nor vastly improves the film (Once Upon a Time in America). There is more character building, but also extends some scenes unnecessarily. Regardless, there's lot more here. The new 81-minute documentary does an excellent job of chronicling the film, from Michael Blake's book to Oscar night with new interviews and vintage behind-the-scenes footage; it's one of the best made-for-DVD retrospectives. There are two commentary tracks, the better one by Costner and producer Jim Wilson, although most of it is from a recording made for the laserdisc. Another nice feature is the presentation of on-set photographs set to John Barry's moving score. --Doug Thomas/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0099348

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

Wildly romantic, daringly exciting, Michael Mann's film of James Fenimore Cooper's novel created a new babe magnet out of Daniel Day-Lewis, he of the heaving pecs and flowing mane. As Hawkeye, he plays an American settler raised by the Mohicans who is forced to serve as a guide for British adventurism in upstate New York. But the British have been outflanked by the French (and their Indian allies); then British honor is betrayed when a band of renegades assaults them during their retreat. Mann captures the viciousness of this era's hand-to-hand combat in startling battle scenes. But he also invests the film with heartfelt romance, as the feelings swell between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The ending is a stunner, a long, nearly wordless sequence of battle and loss. Strong performances all around, particularly by Russell Means as Chingachgook and Wes Studi as the evil Magua. --Marshall Fine/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0104691

Thunderheart (1992)

Tough but moving, Thunderheart is an unusual story about an arrogant FBI agent (Val Kilmer) who participates in a federal investigation of a murder on an Oglala Sioux reservation. Kilmer's character is part Sioux himself, a detail that leaves him cold as he sets about pushing his way through the community to find facts on the case. In time, however, he begins to feel an ethnic tug and grows increasingly sympathetic to the locals and hostile toward his fellow G-men, much to the dismay of his agency mentor (Sam Shepard). The script is based on real events that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 in South Dakota (involving an armed standoff between Indian activists and the FBI, an event that prompted Thunderheart director Michael Apted to make a companion documentary, Incident at Oglala). The conclusion of Thunderheart feels like politically charged whimsy, but the real strength of the film is Kilmer's outstanding performance as a man in transformation. Apted's clear-eyed depiction of the Sioux's spiritual and cultural continuity with the past has none of the cloying romanticism of other films about Indians. Produced by Robert De Niro.
--Tom Keogh/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0105585

Today's theme iiiizzz... Denzel Washington himself :).

imdb.com/name/nm0000243

John Q (2002)

Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars in this powerful drama about a father who takes extreme measures to save his son's life when his insurance company refuses to cover his heart transplant surgery.

It's impossible to walk away from John Q. without thinking about the film that could have been. The pathetic state of health care in the U.S. and the desperate behavior it engenders is not only worthy but edgy material; no doubt director Nick Cassavetes (She's So Lovely) and Denzel Washington (as well as Robert Duvall, Ray Liotta, James Woods, and Anne Heche) were drawn to the provocative pitch. The only snag is that John Q. has about as much edge as an after-school special. Washington plays John Quincy Archibald, a hard-working factory worker whose house stands to be repossessed and whose lovely wife (Kimberly Elise) is at her wits' end. When his extremely cute son collapses while rounding the bases in a Little League game, things go from bad to worse. John Q. takes a downtown Chicago emergency room hostage when he learns that the heart transplant his son needs won't be performed because his health care doesn't cover it. The action-drama that ensues--replete with one-liners, stilted debate, inept snipers, and multiple references to O.J. Simpson's white Bronco--is so littered with clichés that the issues, timely ones, get lost in a crescendo of melodrama. --Fionn Meade/amazon

DVD features
The DVD extras include "Fighting for Care," a documentary featurette, as well as audio commentary from the director, screenwriter, producer, and director of photography. One can also select optional Infinifilm pop-ups that trigger one- to two-minute expansions on the movie. The pop-ups can be simple cast bios, commentary from the actors and directors, screen-test footage, and how-did-they-do-that? setup shots, but many of them are further illustrations of the trials a patient in need of an organ transplant can face. Taken together, they become a more scathing indictment of insurance companies and the American healthcare system than the film itself. --Ali Davis/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0251160

Man on Fire (2004)

And talking about Denzel Washington... (see below in The Manchurian Candidate) This is one of those movies I have watched a couple of times now, never got boring. (Althought I still shut my eyes when Denzel W. starts cutting off fingers... ewww!)
Creasy thought he had nothing left to lose.
He was wrong.
Style trumps substance in Man on Fire, a slick, brooding reunion of Crimson Tide star Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott. The ominous, crime-ridden setting is Mexico City, where a dour, alcoholic warrior with a mysterious Black Ops past (Washington) seeks redemption as the devoted bodyguard of a lovable 9-year-old girl (the precociously gifted Dakota Fanning), then responds with predictable fury when she is kidnapped and presumably killed. Prolific screenwriter Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential) sets a solid emotional foundation for Washington's tormented character, and Scott's stylistic excess compensates for a distended plot that's both repellently violent and viscerally absorbing. Among Scott's more distracting techniques is the use of free-roaming, comic-bookish subtitles... even when they're unnecessary! Adapted from a novel by A.J. Quinnell and previously filmed as a 1987 vehicle for Scott Glenn, Man on Fire is roughly on par with Scott's similar 1990 film Revenge, efficiently satisfying Washington's incendiary bloodlust under a heavy blanket of humid, doom-laden atmosphere. --Jeff Shannon/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0328107

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

A fantasy movie :)
In LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, after Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire's parents perish in a terrible fire, they are placed in the care of their uncle, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), an evil fiend who is plotting to kill them and seize their fortune. The orphans travel from guardian to guardian, including herpetologist Montgomery Montgomery (Billy Connolly) and grammar-wise Aunt Josephine Anwhistle (Streep), but the worst guardian of all is Count Olaf. Plotting to steal the children’s fortune, Olaf disguises himself as his assistant Stephano and ship captain Julio Sham and keeps popping up in the strangest places. Just when the Baudelaires think things are getting better, something unfortunate happens!

If you spliced Charles Addams, Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, Edward Gorey, and Roald Dahl into a Tim Burtonesque landscape, you'd surely come up with something like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Many critics (in mostly mixed reviews) wondered why Burton didn't direct this comically morbid adaptation of the first three books in the popular series by Daniel Handler (a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket," played here by Jude Law and seen only in silhouette) instead of TV and Casper veteran Brad Silberling, but there's still plenty to recommend the playfully bleak scenario, in which three resourceful orphans thwart their wicked, maliciously greedy relative Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), who subjects them to... well, a series of unfortunate events. Along the way they encounter a herpetologist uncle (Billy Connolly), an anxious aunt (Meryl Streep) who's afraid of everything, and a variety of fantastical hazards and mysterious clues, some of which remain unresolved. Given endless wonders of art direction, costume design, and cinematography, Silberling's direction is surprisingly uninspired (in other words, the books are better), but when you add a throwaway cameo by Dustin Hoffman, Law's amusing narration, and Carrey's over-the-top antics, the first Lemony movie suggests a promising franchise in the making.
--Jeff Shannon/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0339291

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at great risk and potential sacrifice, with an understanding that wartime negotiations are largely a game of subterfuge, cooperation, and clever bribery. Aided by a United Nations official (Nick Nolte), he worked a saintly miracle, and director Terry George (Some Mother's Son) brings formidable social conscience to bear on a true story you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon/amazon
imdb.com/title/tt0395169