The Quintessential Blog of Adam Kuhn

Synopsis: Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a retired CIA agent desperately trying to spend more time with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), after being away from her life for so long. Divorced from his wife, Bryan is finally starting to reconnect with his daughter when Kim decides to visit Europe with a friend. Bryan soon discovers that rather than visiting museums and exploring Paris, Kim will be following the U2 tour across Europe. Having traveled the world, Bryan warns against the dangers of Europe, but concedes and lets Kim take the trip with a few stipulations: she must call him every night to let him know that she is safe.

Kim neglects to call Bryan after landing in Paris and Bryan quickly becomes worried. Bryan calls Kim to find out that her friend Amanda lied about staying with cousins in Paris and that Kim and Amanda will be staying in the apartment alone. While on the phone with Bryan, things quickly deteriorate when Kim spots kidnappers abducting her friend Amanda and Bryan knows she is next. While still on the phone, the kidnappers soon discover Kim hiding and take her. One of the kidnappers picks up the phone and Bryan gives him a choice: hand over Kim or be killed.

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Synopsis: Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), a devout American Muslim, and a former U.S. Army Special Forces expert in explosives, has been mysteriously showing up on the FBI’s radar for being in the area of terrorist bombings. FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) heads up a task force investigation to link Horn to these bombings. Clayton is able to question Horn after he was arrested in Yemen for attempting to sell explosives to an Islamic terrorist group. The terrorists break out of prison and take Horn with them. With the help of Max Archer (Neal McDonough), Clayton is able to link Horn to a bombing of an American Consulate in Nice, and a failed police raid to capture his top terrorist contact in London. Clayton has been pursuing Horn around the world and has tracked him to the United States. Clayton must capture Horn before he strikes his next target.

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Remember the lovable Claudio from Long Way Round and Long Way Down? Those treks haven’t been his only world explorations, in fact, Claudio has filmed and documented cultures located in a variety of remote locations, including the mountains of Afghanistan, the rain forests of New Guinea, and the front lines in Iraq. This latest film from him follows a group of philanthropists on an anti-slavery campaign to deliver 4×4 vehicles to humanitarian organizations in Sierra Leone. As always, I’ve hidden a nice little extra in this post – if you’re unsure how to access it, contact me:

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Synopsis: Fred Claus has lived his entire life in his brother’s very large shadow. Fred tried, but could hardly live up to the example set by the younger Nicholas, who was just a perfect, well, saint. True to form, Nicholas (a.k.a Santa Claus) grew up to be the model of giving, while Fred became the polar opposite: a fast-talking repo man who’s run out of luck and money. Eventually Fred’s bad behavior catches up with him and he is sent to jail. His only recourse is to turn to his brother. Over Mrs. Claus’ objections, Nicholas agrees to help his brother on one condition: that he come to the North Pole and earn the money he needs by working in Santa’s Toy Shop. The trouble is that Fred isn’t exactly elf material and cut out for creating toys and spreading good cheer. With Christmas fast approaching, Fred could jeopardize the jolliest holiday of the year and ruin Christmas.

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Awesome video:

Right click on the image above and click “save target as” or “download linked file.”

Synopsis: After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL-E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet’s future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL-E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most exciting and imaginative comedy adventures ever brought to the big screen.

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Synopsis: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Brian Grazer, Steve Zaillian and Ridley Scott team to tell the true juggernaut success story of a cult hero from the streets of 1970s Harlem in American Gangster.

Nobody used to notice Frank Lucas, the quiet driver to one of the inner city’s leading black crime bosses. But when his boss suddenly dies, Frank exploits the opening in the power structure to build his own empire and create his own version of the American Dream. Through ingenuity and a strict business ethic, he comes to rule the inner-city drug trade, flooding the streets with a purer product at a better price. Lucas outplays all of the leading crime syndicates and becomes not only one of the city’s mainline corrupters, but part of its circle of legit civic superstars.

Richie Roberts is an outcast cop close enough to the streets to feel a shift of control in the drug underworld. Roberts believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known Mafia families and starts to suspect that a black power player has come from nowhere to dominate the scene. Both Lucas and Roberts share a rigorous ethical code that sets them apart from their own colleagues, making them lone figures on opposite sides of the law. The destinies of these two men will become intertwined as they approach a confrontation where only one of them can come out on top.

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Synopsis: Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” is a masterly, unflinching examination of a consummately evil man. Daniel Plainview (via a transcendent performance by the great Daniel Day-Lewis) is, as he likes to remind those around him, an oil man: he finds it, he drills for it, and he makes money from it. Following a tip from a visitor named Paul Sunday, whose family sits atop a veritable ocean of oil, Plainview travels to the town of New Boston, California, with his young son. Sunday’s preacher brother Eli (both roles are played by the excellent Paul Dano) grudgingly accepts Plainview’s ambitions under the condition that he help fund the town church. As Plainview’s plans come to fruition, a series of events begin to fracture the insular world he has constructed for himself, pitting Plainview against Sunday and forcing him to become even more vindictive and ruthless.

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