New This Week (8/22/13)

Bullet to the Head (R)

Sylvester Stallone gives a powerful performance in this “lean and mean” (The Hollywood Reporter) white=knuckle thrill-ride.  When the partner of aging New Orleans hit man Jimmy Bonomo (Stallone) is murdered, Bonomo vows to take down those responsible.  He teams up with a young D.C. cop (Sung Kang) and the unlikely partners are drawn into a tense, dangerous cat-and-mouse game with a ruthless “businessman” (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).

Graceland (2012) (Not Rated) (Tagalong)

Family man Marlon Villar - a longtime chauffeur to corrupt Filipino politician Manuel Chango - is faced with an unthinkable predicament when he is ambushed while driving both his boss's and his own daughter home from school one afternoon. In the chaos of the kidnapping attempt, things go horribly awry and Marlon's daughter is taken and held for ransom instead. Desperate to save his daughter, Marlon must navigate the conflicting motives between the ruthless kidnappers, untrustworthy Chango and determined detectives eager to name him a suspect without letting on the wrong girl was taken hostage. As events spin wildly out of control, Marlon, Chango and their families are forced into a rapid downward spiral of deceit and betrayal that will leave no one innocent.

Kon Tiki (PG-13) (Norwegian)

The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific ocean in a balsa wood raft in 1947, together with five men, to prove that South Americans already back in pre-Columbian times could have crossed the sea and settle on Polynesian islands. After financing the trips with loans and donations they set off on an epic 101 days long trip across 8000 kilometers, while the world was waiting for the result of the trip. The film tells about the origin of the idea, the preparations and the events on the trip. Kon-Tiki was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, and "Kon-Tiki" is an old name for this god. Heyerdahl filmed the expedition, which later became the Acaemy award winning documentary in 1951, and wrote a book about the expedition which was translated into 70 languages and sold more than 50 millions copies around the world. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not. ...

Midsomer Murders – Set 22 (Not Rated)

The cozy villages of Midsomer County reveal their most sinister secrets in these contemporary British television mysteries. Inspired by the novels of Caroline Graham, modern master of the English village mystery, the series stars Neil Dudgeon (Life of Riley) as the capable Detective Chief Inspector John Barnaby, with Jason Hughes (This Life) as his earnest, efficient partner, Detective Sergeant Ben Jones. Guest stars include Warren Clarke, Joanna David, Genevieve O’Reilly, and James Dreyfus.

THE MYSTERIES
The Sleeper under the Hill—Barnaby and Jones investigate a group of Druids in Midsomer Mow.
The Night of the Stag—Local bootleggers come under suspicion after the disappearance of a government inspector.
A Sacred Trust—Vandalism and violence send shock waves through Midsomer’s cloistered nunnery.
A Rare Bird—The detectives investigate whether competition between ornithology enthusiasts led to murder.

Pain & Gain (R)

Based on the true story of Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) a Miami bodybuilder who wants to live the American dream. He would like to have the money that other people have. So he enlists the help of fellow bodybuilder Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and ex-convict, Christian bodybuilder Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson). Their kidnapping and extortion scheme goes terribly wrong since they have muscles for brains and they're left to haphazardly try to hold onto the elusive American dream.

To The Wonder (R)

Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling in Europe who meets and falls in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), an Ukrainian divorcée who is raising her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana in Paris. The lovers travel to Mont St. Michel, the island abbey off the coast of Normandy, basking in the wonder of their newfound romance. Neil makes a commitment to Marina, inviting her to relocate to his native Oklahoma with Tatiana. He takes a job as an environmental inspector and Marina settles into her new life in America with passion and vigor. After a holding pattern, their relationship cools. Marina finds solace in the company of another exile, the Catholic priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), who is undergoing a crisis of faith. Work pressures and increasing doubt pull Neil further apart from Marina, who returns to France with Tatiana when her visa expires. Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), an old flame. They fall in love until Neil learns that Marina has fallen on hard times. ...