The Call

Set in a Los Angeles 911 emergency call centre, The Call stars Halle Berry as a 911 operative who receives a terrified call from a teenage girl about a man braking into her house. The call is cut off and Jordan (Berry) makes the terrible mistake of redialling, alerting the killer of the girl’s location in the process. She quits the desk job, but a call (via an untraceable phone) from another teenage girl in peril places Jordan back into the hot seat.

Inside Llewyn Davis

Having just embarked on a solo career, Llewyn Davis finds his career not going in the direction he had wished. Regularly found performing at small venues in Greenwich Village in 1960s New York, Llewyn Davis’ life takes a turn for the worse when his best friend’s girlfriend announces that she is pregnant and he might be the father. Homeless Llewyn Davis attempts to balance this with his desperate attempts to make himself noticeable within the music industry.

Prisoners

Incendies was one of the best films of 2010, it was hard-hitting, brutally emotional and contained a twist that was like something from – I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.  Denis Villeneuve’s first English language film is set in a small town in Pennsylvania in which two young girls are kidnapped. The police investigation, led by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), leads to the arrest of a mentally handicapped Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but when there is not enough evidence to charge him of the crime, he is released. This enrages Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), one of the fathers of the missing girls, who then proceeds to kidnap Alex and torture him in an attempt to extract information about the whereabouts of the two missing girls.

In a World...

In a world where men dominate the positions for voiceover artist in trailers, just like the one we live in now, one woman (Lake Bell) decides to follow her dream and auditions for the role as voiceover artist for a trailer for a romantic comedy, and after a successful audition she gets the gig. Carol Solomon impresses producers so much that she has a chance to provide a voiceover for the upcoming trailers for the Amazon Games, one of the biggest literacy phenomenons in memory. Up against her is the next Don LaFontaine and her own father (Fred Melamed).

12 Years a Slave

Directed by Steve McQueen 12 Years a Slave is based on the memoir by Solomon Northup, of the same name, which tells the story of his twelve years as a slave. Solomon is lured to Washington where he is drugged, kidnapped and eventually sold to William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). After a fight with John Tibeats (Paul Dano), Solomon Northup’s life is no longer safe at Ford’s plantation thus he is sold to the violent plantation owner, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

American Hustle

American Hustle starts off with a message saying “some of this is actually true”, perhaps this is knowing nod to the audience who are aware that many films that state that “the following events are based on a true story” basically mean “we have taken the bare basics of the truth and decided to make up some shit as well”. Anywho, moving on, American Hustle is loosely based on the ABSCAM investigation in which a number of notable politicians are embodied in a corruption scandal.

Insidious Chapter 2

Insidious Chapter 2 starts off where the first film left us sighing exasperatedly at a lame attempt at building a franchise masquerading as cliff-hanger. Anyway, in the first film Dalton (Ty Simpkins) fell into a coma thus allowing an evil spirit into our world (thus replacing Dalton). His Dad, Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), rescues him from The Further, bringing him back to the world of the living. However, it becomes clear that Josh has brought something back with him as his behaviour is strange to say the least. Furthermore, the hauntings and bad dreams have once again started troubling the Lambert family.