This Weekend: Body of Lies, City of Ember, The Express, Quarantine

Body of Lies [watch the trailer in HD]
From screenwriter William Monahan, the man who adapted Infernal Affairs into the Oscar-winning crime saga The Departed, comes Body of Lies, another tale of intrigue and betrayal starring Leonardo DiCaprio- this time on the world stage. This time, Ridley Scott is at the helm. CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) and agency vet Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) try to infiltrate a rising terrorist network with the help of Jordan’s ruthlessly benevolent security chief Hani (Mark Strong), but undercover work is fraught with danger and duplicity, and too often the three men find themselves working at cross-purposes to achieve the same goal. It’s a war movie that leaves most of the politicking aside and just tells us what it’s like for the guys on the ground.

City of Ember [watch the trailer]
Ember is an underground city, with a massive generator that’s kept it brightly illuminated for centuries… but its time is starting to run out. It’s up to Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadway, with the help of Tim Robbins, to figure out the way to save the people of their city from disaster, if Mayor Cole (Bill Murray) doesn’t stop them before they can unravel the mystery. A darker take, both literaly and figuratively, on the teen fantasy genre.

The Express [watch trailers and clips]
This fall’s inspirational sports drama comes in the form of The Express, the story of the first black man to ever win the Heisman Trophy, Ernie Davis of the 1961 Syracuse Orangemen. Rob Brown of Finding Forrester (he’s the man now, dog) plays Davis, who strives to make his mark in the beginning stages of the Civil Rights movement, and Dennis Quaid plays his coach, Ben Schwartzwalder. Only in true stories does anyone in the movies have a name like Schwartzwalder. Davis, nicknamed “The Elmira Express” for the small town in New York where he came of age, had one hell of a college football career, only to be followed by a tragic diagnosis of leukemia that claimed his life before he ever played a professional game. It’s the kind of story that makes legends.

Quarantine [watch the trailer]
They’ve been churning out remakes of Japanese horror films for years now, so this time we get a remake of a Spanish horror film called [REC] to see how that plays. A TV news crew is following a team of firefighters on a routine 911 call, only to discover cops on the scene investigating disturbing screams from people infected with something terrifying. Their attempts to escape the savage attacks is foiled when they discover the entire building has been quarantined and they’re all trapped inside with whatever lurking horrors await to try and kill them.