Objective, The (2008)Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 |
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A group of Special Ops Reservists on a mission in the harsh and hostile terrain of Afghanistan find themselves lost in a Middle Eastern “Bermuda Triangle” of ancient evil. |
Objective, The (2008)Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 |
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A group of Special Ops Reservists on a mission in the harsh and hostile terrain of Afghanistan find themselves lost in a Middle Eastern “Bermuda Triangle” of ancient evil. |
Man Who Would Be King, The (1975)Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 |
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” The Man Who Would Be King” is about two ambitious ex-soldiers stationed in India who set out to become the rulers of an entire country. After finishing their tour of duty in India, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan have decided that India is “too small for the likes of them,” so they decide to bribe a local ruler and extort money from him, in order to buy twenty Martini rifles, which they will use to take over villages in Kafristan. They face many challenges and perils along the way, including difficult terrain, hostile natives, freezing temperatures, and an avalanche high in the mountains. They eventually come to a small village, Urheb, where they meet Ootah and Billy Fish, an Indian who speaks English; he then becomes their translator. They then train the natives of this village to use the rifles, and soon conquer village after village. During a battle, Daniel is struck by an arrow that seemingly sticks out of his chest. The ignorant natives believe that he must be a God for not having died, and fall down and begin worshiping him. Daniel and Peachy decide that it would be easier for a “God ” to take over the country, so they pretend that Daniel is a god, the son of Alexander the Great who has returned after 2200 years to again rule Kafristan. The entire country celebrated the return of their new ruler, the Son of Segunda (”Alexander”). As a token of their admiration, the holiest of holy men gives Daniel all of the gold and riches left by Alexander in 328 B.C. It is enough to make them the richest men in the world . . . All goes well until Daniel’s ego and greed gets the best of him. He asks Peachy to bow when he walks in front of him. He later tells Peachy that he has decided to stay, and now believes that he is the son of Alexander ( ‘in spirit, anyways”), and that to fulfill his destiny, he will marry Roxanne, like his “father” Alexander did before him. The Kafiri’s believe that a mortal cannot marry a God, but Daniel goes ahead anyway. Peachy was set to leave with his share of the treasure, but Daniel convinced him to stay ” for old time’s sake” for the wedding. At the ceremony, Roxanne, believing that she would soon die, bites Daniel, drawing blood. The entire crowd realizes that since Danny is bleeding, that he is a man, not a God, and that he has been deceiving them the entire time. Peachy grabs Daniel and they run off with their twenty soldiers, shooting at the crowd of monks who set out to kill them. They are eventually captured, and Daniel is forced to walk out on a rope bridge. The monks cut the ropes, and Daniel bravely falls to his death. Peachy is later crucified; when they come to see him the next day, he is still alive, and they say that it is a miracle that he lived and they cut him down. He eventually climbs down into the valley and retrieves Danny’s head, still wearing the crown. He brings it back to Rudyard Kipling, a writer for the Northern Star, as proof that Daniel accomplished his goal, and became the King of Kafristan. Themes developed in the story: 1. ambition 2. friendship 3. taking risks 4. perseverance (not giving up) 5. power 6. honor and dignity |
Kite Runner, The (2007)Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
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In the 70’s in Afghanistan, the Pushtun boy Amir and the Hazara boy Hassan, who is his loyal friend and son of their Hazara servant Ali, are raised together in Amir’s father house, playing and kitting on the streets of a peaceful Kabul. Amir feels that his wise and good father Baba blames him for the death of his mother in the delivery, and also that his father loves and prefers Hassam to him. In return, Amir feels a great respect for his father’s best friend Rahim Khan, who supports his intention to become a writer. After Amir winning a competition of kitting, Hassam runs to bring a kite to Amir, but he is beaten and raped by the brutal Assef in an empty street to protect Amir’s kite; the coward Amir witness the assault but does not help the loyal Hassam. On the day after his birthday party, Amir hides his new watch in Hassam’s bed to frame the boy as a thief and force his father to fire Ali, releasing his conscience from recalling his cowardice and betrayal. In 1979, the Russians invade Afghanistan and Baba and Amir escape to Pakistan. In 1988, they have a simple life in Fremont, California, when Amir graduates in a public college for the pride and joy of Baba. Later Amir meets his countrywoman Soraya and they get married. In 2000, after the death of Baba, Amir is a famous novelist and receives a phone call from the terminal Rahim Khan, who discloses secrets about his family, forcing Amir to return to Peshawar, in Pakistan, in a journey of redemption. |
Iron Man (2008)Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 |
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Tony Stark is the complete playboy who also happens to be an engineering genius. While in Afghanistan demonstrating a new missile he’s captured and wounded. His captors want him to assemble a missile for them but instead he creates an armored suit and a means to prevent his death from the shrapnel left in his chest by the attack. He uses the armored suit to escape. Back in the U.S. he announces his company will cease making weapons and he begins work on an updated armored suit only to find that Obadiah Stane, his second in command at Stark industries has been selling Stark weapons to the insurgents. He uses his new suit to return to Afghanistan to destroy the arms and then to stop Shane from misusing his research. |
Lions for Lambs (2007)Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 |
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Lions for Lambs begins after two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian and Ernest, follow the inspiration of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley, and attempt to do something important with their lives. But when the two make the bold decision to join the battle in Afghanistan, Malley is both moved and distraught. Now, as Arian and Ernest fight for survival in the field, they become the string that binds together two disparate stories on opposite sides of America. In California, an anguished Dr. Malley attempts to reach a privileged but disaffected student who is the very opposite of Arian and Ernest. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the charismatic Presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving, is about to give a bombshell story to a probing TV journalist that may affect Arian and Ernest’s fates. |
Death of a President (2006)Sunday, December 9th, 2007 |
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Years after the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago, an investigative documentary examines that as-yet-unsolved crime. |
Road to Guantanamo, The (2006)Monday, November 12th, 2007 |
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In 2001, four Pakistani Britons, Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul and another friend, Monir, travel to Pakistan for a wedding and in a urge of idealism, decide to see the situation of war torn Afganistan which is being bombed by the American forces in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Once there, with the loss of Monir in the wartime chaos, they are captured by Northern Alliance fighters. They are then handed them over the American forces who transport them to the prison camps at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. What follows is three years of relentless imprisonment, interrogations and torture to make them submit to blatantly wrong confessions to being terrorists. In the midst of this abuse, the three struggle to keep their spirits up in that face of this grave injustice. |
Rambo III (1988)Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 |
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John Rambo’s former Vietnam superior, Colonel Samuel Trautman, has been assigned to lead a mission to help the Mujahedeen rebels who are fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Buddhist Rambo turns down Trautman’s request that Rambo help out. When the mission goes belly up and Trautman is kidnapped and tortured by Russian Colonel Zaysen, Rambo launches a rescue effort and allies himself with the Mujahedeen rebels and gets their help in trying to rescue Trautman from Zaysen. |
Spies Like Us (1985)Monday, May 7th, 2007 |
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Two totally incompetent applicants, Emmett Fitzhume and Austin Millbarge, are chosen from a CIA recruitment program. They are parachuted into Pakistan and eventually end up in Afghanistan, chased by the Russians, where they learn they are being used as decoys to draw out the Sovet defenses. Two real spies are sent in. Their mission is to Hijack a soviet Missile launcher, launch the Soviet missile and test the new US orbital defence laser. The missile is fired and while heading for an American City, the laser system misses it’s target. The contingency plan for this scenario, as set out by the Pentagon Nuts who planned it from deep within a secret underground bunker, is to let the 3rd World War happen anyway. |
Domino (2005)Friday, May 4th, 2007 |
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The daughter of an actor with a high-society woman, Domino Harvey, bored with her life, decides to join the team of Ed Mosley and becomes a bounty hunter. But she gets in trouble when the Mafia’s money is stolen from an armored truck, while Mosley and his crew are in action participating of a reality show produced by Mark Heiss. The situation becomes out of control when the sons of a rival mobster are kidnapped while FBI is monitoring the two gangs of mobsters. |