Robots and Vamps

Some of the movies that RaV is looking forward to seeing on DVD.

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Gran Torino (R)

Box Office: $148.0 Million
Run Time: 116 minutes

Spoiler summary: Retired auto worker Walt Kowalski fills his days with home repair, beer, and monthly trips to the barber. Though his late wife’s final wish was for him to take confession, for Walt–an embittered veteran of the Korean War who keeps his M-1 rifle cleaned and ready–there’s nothing to confess. And no one he trusts enough to confess to other than his dog, Daisy.

The people he once called his neighbors have all moved or passed away, replaced by the Hmong immigrants he despises. Resentful of virtually everything he sees–the drooping eaves, overgrown lawns and the foreign faces surrounding him; the aimless gangs of Hmong, Latino and African American teenagers who all think the neighborhood belongs to them; the callow strangers his children have grown up to be–Walt is just waiting out the rest of his life.

Until the night someone tries to steal his Gran Torino.

Still gleaming as it did the day Walt himself helped roll it off the assembly line decades ago, the Gran Torino brings his shy teenaged neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) into his life when Hmong gang-bangers pressure the boy into trying to steal it.

But Walt stands in the way of both the heist and the gang, making him the reluctant hero of the neighborhood–especially to Thao’s mother and older sister, Sue (Ahney Her), who insist that Thao work for Walt as a way to make amends. Though he initially wants nothing to do with these people, Walt eventually gives in and puts the boy to work fixing up the neighborhood, setting into motion an unlikely friendship that will change both their lives.

Through Thao and his family’s unrelenting kindness, Walt eventually comes to understand certain truths about the people next door. And about himself. These people–provincial refugees from a cruel past–have more in common with Walt than he has with his own family, and reveal to him parts of his soul that have been walled off since the war…like the Gran Torino preserved in the shadows of his garage.

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The International (R)

Box Office: $25.5 Million
Run Time: 118 minutes

Spoiler summary: In The International, a gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war. Directed by Tom Tykwer from an original screenplay written by Eric Warren Singer, The International was shot on location in Germany and throughout Europe.

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Fired Up (PG-13)

Box Office: $17.2 Million
Run Time: 90 minutes

Spoiler summary: Shawn Colfax and Nick Brady, the stars of the Gerald R. Ford High School football team, are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp. When Nick hatches a scheme for the two to join their school’s cheerleaders at cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women. It all goes great until Shawn falls for Carly, the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through them.

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Crossing Over (R)

Box Office: $0.4 Million
Run Time: 113 minutes

Spoiler summary: Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create — in 21st century L.A.

Kramer’s intersecting stories, both cathartic and tragic, are brought to life by an international ensemble.