In Cinemas this week (29 November – 5 December)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

A year after winning the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and her partner, Peeta Mellark must go on what is known as the Victor’s Tour wherein they visit all the districts. But before leaving, Katniss is visited by President Snow who fears that Katniss defied him a year ago during the games when she chose to die with Peta. With both Katniss and Peeta declared the winners, it is fueling a possible uprising. He tells Katniss that while on tour she better try to make sure that she puts out the flames or else everyone she cares about will be in danger. But unfortunately she fails to do that. So Snow decides to enact what is known as the Quarter Quell, the right to make a change to the Hunger Games, which he is allowed to do every 25 years. He decides to hold an edition of the Hunger Games wherein previous winners will compete again. Their mentor Haymitch thinks their best chance to survive is form an alliance with some of the others. They decide to align themselves with Finnick and his partner, Mags. But Snow is secretly hoping Katniss will be killed.

Cast:
Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen)
Liam Hemsworth (Gale Hawthorne)
Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark)
Woody Harrelson (Haymitch Abernathy)

Director: Francis Lawrence
Writer: Simon Beaufoy, Michael Arndt
Runtime: 146 min
Genre: Action, Adventure
Rating: 12
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Yummy Gummy Bears Search for Santa (Greek)

Join dancing internet sensation Gummibar in his first ever movie adventure! When Santa vanishes on Christmas Eve, Gummibar and his band of wacky, misfit friends shake their booties from the North Pole to the tropics on a madcap search. But when they discover Santa was abducted by a dance-crazed alien, the fate of Christmas morning rests in the hands – and feet – of our lovable green gummy bear!

Cast:
Nicholas Stravopodis
Christos Grigoriadis
Thanassis Drakopoulos
Christina Constantinou

Director: Bernie Denk, Jurgen Kordouletsch
Writer: Robert David Stevenson, Jurgen Kordouletsch
Runtime: 61 min
Genre: Animation
Rating: K
Language: Greek
Production Year: 2013

Thor: The Dark World 3D

There are nine realms of Asgard and once every 5,000 years they align. Earth happens to be one of these realms. These realms create portals between the worlds during the alignment which is called “Convergence”. On Earth, in London, Jane Foster believes she and her crew have discovered one such portal. Foster, while investigating the phenomenon, is transported to another realm and comes in contact with a substance called Aether. Upon coming into contact with the substance, it draws Thor from Asgard back to Earth. Thor takes Jane to Asgard to be cured from the Aether. Unfortunately in doing so it draws more than just Jane to the world. Another being called Malekith wants to use the Aether to destroy Asgard. Devising a plan with his brother – the war criminal Loki, Thor heads to “The Dark World” to destroy the Aether and save Asgard. But can Loki be trusted?

Cast:
Chris Hemsworth (Thor)
Natalie Portman (Jane Foster)
Tom Hiddleston (Loki)
Anthony Hopkins (Odin)

Director: Alan Taylor, James Gunn
Writer: Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus
Runtime: 112 min
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: 12
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

The Counselor

A rich and successful lawyer named Counselor is about to get married to his fiancée but soon meets up with the middle-man known as Westray who tells him his drug trafficking plan has taken a horrible twist and now he must protect himself and his soon bride-to-be lover as the truth of the drug business uncovers and targets become chosen.

Cast:
Michael Fassbender (Counselor)
Penélope Cruz (Laura)
Cameron Diaz (Malkina)
Javier Bardem (Reiner)

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Cormac McCarthy
Runtime: 117 min
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rating: 18
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Prisoners

How far would you go to protect your family? Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki arrests its driver, Alex Jones, but a lack of evidence forces his release. As the police pursue multiple leads and pressure mounts, knowing his child’s life is at stake the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family?

Cast:
Hugh Jackman (Keller Dover)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Detective Loki)
Viola Davis (Nancy Birch)
Terrence Howard (Franklin Birch)

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Aaron Guzikowski
Runtime: 153 min
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rating: 15
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Battle of the Year 3D

Battle of the Year attracts all the best teams from around the world, but the Americans haven’t won in fifteen years. Dante enlists Blake to assemble a team of the best dancers and bring the Trophy back to America where it started.

Cast:
Josh Holloway (Jason Blake)
Laz Alonso (Dante Graham)
Josh Peck (Franklyn)
Chris Brown (Rooster)

Director: Benson Lee
Writer: Brin Hill, Chris Parker
Runtime: 110 min
Genre: Music
Rating: 12
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Free Birds

After years of fruitless warning of his farmyard brethren of the coming Thanksgiving doom, Reggie the Turkey finds himself spared as the annual Pardoned Turkey. However, Reggie’s easy life is disrupted by Jake, a fanatic turkey who drags him along with the insane idea of going back in time to make sure turkeys are not part of the first Thanksgiving. Through foolhardiness and luck, the pair manage to take an experiment time machine to do just that. Now in 1621 at the Plymouth colony, Reggie and Jake find themselves in the middle of a turkey clan’s struggle for survival. In doing so, their preconceptions of the world and themselves are challenged forever in a conflict from which the world will never be the same. In Greek dubbed by Yiannis Stefopoulos, Dinos Soutis, Tasos Kostis, Petros Spyropoulos.

Cast:
Owen Wilson (Reggie)
Woody Harrelson (Jake)
Amy Poehler (Jenny)
George Takei (S.T.E.V.E.)

Director: Jimmy Hayward
Writer: Jimmy Hayward, Scott Mosier
Runtime: 91 min
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Rating: K
Language: English/Greek
Production Year: 2013

Closed Circuit

Following a mysterious explosion in a busy London market, the police swoop in, a suspect is detained, and the country prepares for one of the most high-profile trials in British history. Two exceptional lawyers with a romantic past step into a dangerous web of secrets and lies, and when evidence points to a possible British Secret Service cover up, it’s not just their reputations but their lives that are at stake.

Cast:
Eric Bana (Martin Rose)
Rebecca Hall (Claudia Simmons-Howe)
Ciarán Hinds (Devlin)
Jim Broadbent (Attorney General)

Director: John Crowley
Writer: Steven Knight
Runtime: 96 min
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Rating: 12
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Escape Plan

Ray Breslin is the world’s foremost authority on structural security. After analyzing every high security prison and learning a vast array of survival skills so he can design escape-proof prisons, his skills are put to the test. He’s framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed himself. He needs to escape and find the person who put him behind bars.

Cast:
Sylvester Stallone (Ray Breslin)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Emil Rottmayer)
Jim Caviezel (Hobbes)
Amy Ryan (Abigail)

Director: Mikael Håfström
Writer: Miles Chapman, Jason Keller
Runtime: 115 min
Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: 15
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Insidious: Chapter 2

The haunted Lambert family seeks to uncover the mysterious childhood secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world.

Cast:
Patrick Wilson (Josh Lambert)
Rose Byrne (Renai Lambert)
Ty Simpkins (Dalton Lambert)
Lin Shaye (Elise Rainier)

Director: James Wan
Writer: Leigh Whannell, James Wan
Runtime: 106 min
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rating: 18
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Οικόπεδο 12 (Block 12)

English satellites who conduct research from space discover large oil deposits in the area of the Old Mines in Cyprus. A big part of the area belongs to Costantas Rizites (he has bought half of it from his Turkish Cypriot colleague Ahmet Beyoglu) who has retired there with his wife Ellou. The outbreak of a big economic crisis leads the two sons of the family to bankruptcy forcing them to move their families to the house. This whole situation is made worse when the Cyprus government keeps asking to buy the house, and Costantas stubbornly refuses. Moreover two English agents and Hasan Beyoglu (son of Ahmet) camp outside the house. The house is in a state of internal and external siege.

Cast:
Costas Dimitriou
Karmen Rouggeri
Michalis Marinos
Yiannis Tsimitselis

Director: Kyriakos Tofarides
Writer: Panos Stathogiannis
Runtime: 95 min
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: 12
Language: Greek
Production Year: 2013

Captain Phillips

The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.

Cast:
Tom Hanks (Captain Richard Phillips)
Barkhad Abdi (Muse)
Barkhad Abdirahman (Bilal)
Catherine Keener (Andrea Phillips)

Director: Paul Greengrass
Writer: Billy Ray, Richard Phillips
Runtime: 134 min
Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography
Rating: 12
Language: English
Production Year: 2013

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Greek)

After the disastrous food storm in the first film, Flint and his friends are forced to leave the town. Flint accepts the invitation from his idol Chester V to join The Live Corp Company, which has been tasked to clean the island, and where the best inventors in the world create technologies for the betterment of mankind. When Flint discovers that his machine still operates and now creates mutant food beasts like living pickles, hungry tacodiles, shrimpanzees and apple pie-thons, he and his friends must return to save the world.

Cast:
Dinos Soutis
Maria Zervou
Argiris Pavlidis
Sophia Kapsampeli

Director: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Writer: Judi Barrett, Ron Barrett
Runtime: 95 min
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Rating: K
Language: Greek
Production Year: 2013

The Smurfs 2

The evil wizard Gargamel creates a couple of mischievous Smurf-like creatures called the Naughties that he hopes will let him harness the all-powerful, magical Smurf-essence. But when he discovers that only a real Smurf can give him what he wants, and only a secret spell that Smurfette knows can turn the Naughties into real Smurfs, Gargamel kidnaps Smurfette and brings her to Paris, where he has been winning the adoration of millions as the world’s greatest sorcerer. It’s up to Papa, Clumsy, Grouchy, and Vanity to return to our world, reunite with their human friends Patrick and Grace Winslow, and rescue her! Will Smurfette, who has always felt different from the other Smurfs, find a new connection with the Naughties Vexy and Hackus or will the Smurfs convince her that their love for her is True Blue?

Director: Raja Gosnell
Writer: J. David Stem, David N. Weiss
Runtime: 105 min
Genre: Animation
Rating: K
Language: English/Greek
Production Year: 2013

Turbo (Greek)

Theo, a.k.a Turbo, is a garden snail who dreams of being the greatest racer in the world, just like his hero, 5-time Indianapolis 500 champ, Guy Gagne. His obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an oddity and an outsider in the slow and cautious snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his cautious older brother, Chet. Turbo desperately wishes he could escape the slow-paced life he’s living, but his one chance to live proves a near fatal disaster. Demoralized Theo wanders onto a freeway to admire the traffic and gets into a freak accident when he gets sucked into the supercharger of a drag racer, fusing his DNA with nitrous oxide on a street race.

Cast:
Yiorgos Skoufis
Antinoos Albanis
Yiannis Stefopoulos
Fotis Petridis

Director: David Soren
Writer: Darren Lemke, Robert D. Siegel
Runtime: 96 min
Genre: Animation
Rating: K
Language: Greek
Production Year: 2013

Despicable Me 2 (Greek)

Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s worldwide blockbuster Despicable Me entertained audiences around the globe in 2010, grossing more than $540 million and becoming the 10th-biggest animated motion picture in U.S. history. In summer 2013, get ready for more Minion madness in Despicable Me 2.

Cast:
Steve Carell (Gru)
Kristen Wiig (Lucy)
Benjamin Bratt (Eduardo / El Macho)
Russell Brand (Dr. Nefario)

Director: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Writer: Ken Daurio, Cinco Paul
Runtime: 98 min
Genre: Animation, Adventure
Rating: K
Language: Greek
Production Year: 2013