Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Available at Amazon.

Hotel Transylvania is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, and Sym-Bionic Titan, and produced by Michelle Murdocca. The film features the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade and Cee Lo Green.

The film tells a story of Dracula, the owner of Hotel Transylvania, where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters, including Frankenstein's monster, Mummy, a Werewolf family, and the Invisible Man, to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis. When the hotel is unexpectedly visited by an ordinary 21-year-old traveler named Jonathan, Dracula must protect Mavis from falling in love with him before it is too late.

Released on September 28, 2012, the film was met with mixed critical reception, while the general population received it very favorably. Despite mixed reviews, Hotel Transylvania set a new record for the highest-grossing September opening weekend ever, earning a total of $324 million on a budget of $85 million. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. A sequel, titled Hotel Transylvania 2, is scheduled to be released in theaters on September 25, 2015.

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is the owner and creator of Hotel Transylvania, a five-star resort where the world's monsters can be safe from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters like Frankenstein (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Bigfoot, Steve the Blob, and other monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). However, Mavis prefers to explore the outside world with her father's permission, but the village he directs her to is actually an elaborate deception to convince her of the threat of humans enough to coax her back.

However, this charade inadvertently attracts the attention of an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan (Andy Samberg) who was exploring the surrounding forest and followed the staff to the hotel. Once Jonathan enters the hotel, Dracula frantically attempts to hide him from the patrons such as disguising him as a Flesh Golem named Johnny-stein with the later hasty cover story of being a relative of one of Frank's body parts. Eventually, Jonathan is discovered by Mavis and company, and gets magically attracted to Mavis, forcing Dracula to claim he is going to arrange Mavis' birthday party with a fresher perspective. In doing so, Jonathan manages to charm everyone at the hotel, especially Mavis. Eventually, even Dracula begins to like the human taking him into his confidence about his family's traumatic past after the vampire notices the young man knows something about them in a respectful manner.

Unfortunately, Chef Quasimodo Wilson (Jon Lovitz) realizes Jonathan is human and captures him to cook him, forcing Dracula to directly intervene by magically freezing the chef. Eventually, the birthday party happens and it is a raucous success until Dracula freaks out when Mavis and Jonathan have an innocent kiss. A ranting Dracula accidentally lets it slip that he tricked Mavis at the fake village and Mavis is outraged at being manipulated by her own father. Things get worse when a still-frozen Chef Quasimodo interrupts the party as the Fly (Chris Parnell) translates his frozen language to the clientele which states that Jonathan is actually a human. Even as the clientele are revolted, Mavis still accepts and expresses her desire to be with Jonathan even though he is human. For his part, Jonathan feels obliged to reject Mavis for her father's sake and leaves the hotel. Afterward, Dracula realizes that in his efforts to protect Mavis, he has broken her heart and now she tearfully wants to stay at the hotel forever.

Wishing to undo his mistake, and learning from a present from his late wife to Mavis about a zing when two people meet and fall in love, Dracula persuades his friends to help him find Jonathan and even risks his destruction by venturing out in the daylight to do so. Learning that Jonathan is about to board a flight out of Transylvania Airport shortly, they race on and enter a town en route. At that town, Dracula and company are stunned to see the humans having a 'Monster Festival'. To clear a path, Frankenstein tries to scare them, but finds the humans are cheerfully welcoming them instead and even provide a shaded route through the town for Dracula to proceed at maximum speed.

However, Dracula finds that he is too late with Jonathan's plane taking off. With no alternative, Dracula desperately flies after it in broad daylight in his bat form despite being hurt by the sun. With much effort, Dracula manages to reach the plane and resorts to mind-controlling one of the pilots (Brian Stack) and tells Jonathan that he wants him to return to be with his daughter and about the zing they made. Jonathan accepts Dracula's apology and Dracula manipulates the plane back to the airport.

Later, Dracula returns Johnny to Mavis, who tells her that she's his 'zing' and the reason why he had to reject her. Dracula gives his blessing to their relationship, Johnny and Mavis kiss and the hotel has another party to celebrate his daughter's liberating coming of age before Johnny and Mavis set off on their travels.

The film ends with Dracula and his friends being shown in traditional animation (in the style of Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons) during the credits, as well as a few paintings of Johnny and Mavis on their travels together.

Cold Light of Day (2012)

Cold Light of Day (2012)

Available at Amazon.

The Cold Light of Day is a 2012 action film directed by Mabrouk El Mechri, starring Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, and Sigourney Weaver.

Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) is a young man who works as an advisor in San Francisco. During the summer break, he decides to visit his family in Spain for a holiday he really doesn't want. He is picked up by his father, Martin Shaw (Bruce Willis), who works in various different countries for the government as an advisor himself. In the evening, phone calls put Will in a bad mood and he decides to go fishing the next day. Will is still preoccupied with the phone calls, resulting in an accident in which causes his brother's girlfriend hits her head on a winch when Will dives to save her from being hit by the boom. Will decides to swim into town to fetch medicine.

When he swims back, Will finds the boat gone, but after searching, he discovers it abandoned in a neighboring cove. Will runs to a local police station where he is met with indifference. When Will identifies himself, the officer in charge makes a phone call, and then asks to be taken to the boat. They are met there by Zahir (Roschdy Zem), who knows the whereabouts of Will's family, and invites him to show him the way. Will senses something is wrong with the situation, and attempts to escape in the police car. Martin shows up, beats the officers and helps Will escape.

Martin reveals to Will that he is a CIA agent, and explains that the people who have taken their family are after a briefcase he took. Martin calls his partner who agrees to meet him in Madrid. They go to the meeting and Will stays in the car while Martin talks to his partner, Jean Carrack (Sigourney Weaver), who says that she doesn't have the briefcase anymore. He doesn't believe her and thinks something isn't right. As he returns to the car, a sniper murders Martin, and Will is attacked. He leaves the car and he is chased through the rooftops of Madrid, but he manages to escape, and throws his dad's gun in the trash.

Going to the U.S embassy, Will discovers that he is wanted for killing a police officer which he denies, but they are not interested in finding his family. The embassy then tells him someone wants to meet him. Jean and Diego wait for him, and Jean says she wants to help. He doesn't trust her and fakes illness to escape. Looking through his father's phone, he sees that Diego's name comes up several times and calls it. He also gets a call from the kidnappers who want to speak to "Tom" and say they want the briefcase in exchange for his family. The kidnappers give Will a deadline of 21 and meeting point. During this call Will speaks to his mother and tells her Martin was killed.

He arrives at Diego's office and speaks to Lucia Caldera (Verónica Echegui), the girl who he spoke to on the phone. Suddenly, Diego appears and fights with Will, who kills him. Lucia and Will go to her uncle's apartment but find out that Jean and her hitman Gorman have killed her uncle. Will finds and confronts Jean and Gorman in the kitchen. She wants him to follow her but is interrupted by Lucia coming in. They escape through the rooftops and Will is shot. Instead of a hospital, she takes Will to a nightclub where her friend has medical experience. Will also finds out that Tom is Martin's alias in Spain, and that Lucia is his half sister, being Martin's illegilimate daughter.

Will recovers and goes to a meeting with the kidnapper on the phone. The man on the phone is Zahir who initially beats up Will for information. Once he realizes Will really is ignorant of what is happening, Zahir tells him the truth; The briefcase was stolen from a Mossad agent by Martin. Zahir is an Israeli agent determined to recover the case. He realises that Jean is the corrupt agent, not Martin, and she wants to sell the contents of the case. He decides to use Will to lure out Jean and the buyers of the briefcase. Zahir shows Will's family saying he must do as he says, and this must succeed or the family will be released and Jean will kill them.

Will has a plan to lure out Jean by using Lucia's credit card at the club. This lures out Gorman who is subdued by the bouncers at the club and tortured for information. Gorman gives nothing away and Will's next plan is to make him think he has escaped so they can follow him. This works and they follow him to Jean, who then lead them to an underground car park. The Israeli agents follow but a noise spooks Jean who kills the buyers and tries to escape. Gorman is killed trying to escape in his car, and Will and Lucia then pursue Jean. After a pursuit through Madrid, the roles are reversed and Jean chases them due to her frustration with their interference. The cars then collide, and Will's car is worse off. Just as Jean is about to deliver the final blow, she is taken out by Zahir, who retrieves the briefcase.

As Lucia recovers in hospital, she also meets her new half family, and Will is offered a job in the CIA. He accepts.