January 14, 2010 – Troy Duffy’s original cult classic, THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, is now available for the first time via your “Movies On Demand” cable channel. With Troy Duffy’s THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II having become he surprise independent box office hit of the year (with a current box office total of over 10 million dollars) FilmBuff is proud to bring you the 1999 hit that started it all!

The film stars Sean Patrick Flannery, and Norman Reedus as two Irish brothers who have accidentally killed mafia thugs in Boston. Instead of going to jail, they¹re revered as heroes, so they start knocking off the mob, one-by-one. Willem Dafoe stars as the FBI agent, working to hunt them down. THE BOONDOCK SAINTS is available on Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Verizon, and more now!

Rating: PG-13 (Profanity/Sexual Situations/War Violence/Smoking)

Acting Credits:

Production Credits:

Visionary director Timur Bekmambetov (creator of Day Watch and Irony of Fate: The Continuation, the two biggest films in the history of Russian cinema) powers this twisted and visceral adventure of 25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy), a slacker who hates his life—with good reason, because it sucks.

At work, his ball buster of a boss lives to torment him in front of his fellow cube-dwelling drones. Back home, his skeezy girlfriend is a sexual magnet for everyone except him, including Wes’ supposed best friend. No wonder this loser is on his 10th prescription for panic attack pills, which he downs like candy between cardboard meals of vegan tofu wraps. Wes’ pathetic excuse for an existence might just as well come to an end and save him a lifetime of prolonged misery.

Fortunately for Wes, his life is over—his old one, anyway…and all because of a girl. Enter hot Fox (Angelina Jolie), who crashes into Wes on the business end of a smoking gun. Seems Wes’ long-lost and mostly forgotten dad was killed while working for the Fraternity—a centuries-old league of supersensory trained assassins pledged to carry out the unbreakable orders of fate. Their motto: Kill one, save a thousand.

The Fraternity finds unity in and lives by its mission: to preserve balance in the world by eliminating those who are predicted by the Loom of Fate to disturb this balance and to cause harm. They consider themselves operatives of fate, instruments of destiny. The head of the Fraternity is the same man who reads the will of the Loom: Sloan. Having already played God twice, it wasn’t a stretch to see Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman as the master architect of an ancient society.

Freeman says, “I’ve been in many, many films, and so I’m always looking to find something different to try. As an actor, you don’t want to do the same thing ad nauseam. When I read Wanted, I thought the concept was compelling, and Timur’s a very interesting filmmaker. Combine that with the rest of the cast—and the fact that I haven’t done too many action movies— and I was eager to participate.”

Producer Platt comments, “Morgan, as both a human being and as an actor, possesses such integrity, such a strength of character that I’d believe anything he would tell me. He’s someone you would want to be your father, which in our story is very important for Wesley. There is a strength and force that emanates from Morgan without him even trying. We needed someone who could also articulate the mythology of the Fraternity in such a way that the audience would follow and accept it.”

“As a person, Morgan Freeman is very levelheaded and very noble,” says Bekmambetov. “We must believe what he says. He is a businessman, and the head of the Fraternity. He is able to engage Wesley, and so us. That was most important for Sloan.”

Grammy Award-winning and platinum-selling musical artist Common has made recent inroads into films, with roles in two 2007 actioners that had plenty of firepower (American Gangster and Smokin’ Aces); this perhaps made him a logical choice for the role of The Gunsmith. Common offers, “For me, coming from a musical background and being cast in a film with James and Morgan and Angelina was unbelievable. When I heard their names, I knew I had to be part of it. Being among these people, these great actors, just being able to watch and learn…it is an invaluable experience.”

In talking about his character, Common explains, “The Gunsmith is a master at weaponry, guns in particular. He knows everything there is to know about guns—how to create them, assembly, new shooting techniques. Despite that, he has a good heart and is incredibly serene and focused.”

Wanted is based on the series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones; the story is by Michael Brandt & Derek Haas; the screenplay is by Michael Brandt & Derek Haas and Chris Morgan.

(June 3, 2008) Universal Pictures and Marvel Studios bring the action-packed epic motion picture of one of the most captivating heroes of all time to a world that’s been anxiously awaiting it — The Incredible Hulk.

For decades, the brute strength and touching vulnerability of this character have captured the imagination in all of us who are unsure of how to manage the passions that lie buried within. While we try to keep our tensions in check, there is a creature that embraces the pure rage and limitless aggression—living inside one brilliant man who finds his alter ego more and more impossible to suppress. And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

We find scientist Bruce Banner (two-time Oscar® nominee Edward Norton, American History X, Primal Fear) desperately hunting for a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and unleashes the unbridled force of rage within him: The Hulk.

Banner has been living in the shadows—cut off from a life and the woman he loves, Dr. Elizabeth “Betty” Ross (Liv Tyler, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Strangers). Living as a fugitive to avoid the obsessive pursuit of his nemesis, General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Oscar® winner William Hurt, Into the Wild, A History of Violence), he knows that a military machine seeking to capture him and brutally exploit his power is always only a few steps behind.

As all three grapple with the secrets that led to The Hulk’s creation, they are confronted with a vicious new adversary known as The Abomination, a monstrosity whose destructive strength exceeds even The Hulk’s own. Portraying the human incarnation of this powerful creature is noted Academy Award® nominee Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs). As Emil Blonsky, Roth imagines a Super Soldier whose lust for power manifests itself in The Abomination.

And to defeat this nemesis, one scientist must make an agonizing final choice: accept a peaceful life as Bruce Banner or find heroism in the creature he holds inside—The Incredible Hulk.

Joining Norton, Tyler, Hurt and Roth for the film is an accomplished cast including Ty Burrell (National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Dawn of the Dead), who portrays Leonard, a man competing for Betty Ross’ affections, and Tim Blake Nelson (Syriana, Holes), who takes on the role of Professor Samuel Sterns, a cellular biologist who quite possibly holds the key to Banner’s quest for a cure.

(October 22, 2007) In American Gangster, two of Hollywood’s finest, Academy Award® winners Denzel Washington (Training Day, Glory) and Russell Crowe (Gladiator) lead a spectacular cast of accomplished and rising stars—including veteran actress Ruby Dee, the versatile Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jerry Maguire Oscar®-winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin, Armand Assante, rappers RZA, Common and T.I.—in a blistering tale of a true American entrepreneur.

American Gangster also brings together an outstanding team of Oscar® caliber filmmakers; producer Brian Grazer, director/producer Ridley Scott and screenwriter Steven Zaillian for a cinematic event that tells the true juggernaut success story of Frank Lucas (Washington), a cult superstar from the streets of 1970s Harlem, who rose to the heights of power by becoming the most ruthless figure in his business. Lucas was taken down by Richie Roberts (Crowe), an outcast cop driven to bring justice to the streets.

Filmed on location in New York and Thailand, American Gangster spans the years during the height of the Vietnam War, 1968-1974. Lucas and Roberts’ efforts in the post-Boomer society—separately and, eventually, together—would mark the beginning of the end of an era of complicit lawlessness that claimed thousands of lives. And in one corrupt city during one turbulent time, two men living on different sides of the American Dream had no idea they would move from mortal enemies to reluctant allies on the same side of the law.

The legend of heroin smuggler/family man/death dealer/civic leader Frank Lucas was first chronicled seven years ago in a New York Magazine article by journalist Mark Jacobson. In 2000, executive producer Nicholas Pileggi—who co-wrote the screenplays for Goodfellas and Casino with Martin Scorsese—introduced Jacobson to Lucas, thus beginning a journey in which Lucas recounted his outrageous rise and fall to the journalist. From watching his cousin murdered by the KKK in La Grange, North Carolina, to earning mind-boggling figures in drug sales to facing a lifetime in prison, Lucas had one stunner of a true tale.

Jacobson’s subsequent article, “The Return of Superfly,” unfolded the complex story of a desperately poor sharecropper who moved to Harlem and slowly bypassed the usual suspects of its burgeoning heroin scene to rule a New York City empire. Through selling a purer product at a cheaper price to thousands of addicts in the Vietnam-era streets, Lucas amassed a fortune calculated in the tens of millions—and the eventual attention of the law. Had he not been pushing an illegal, deadly substance new to this country, Lucas would have assuredly been celebrated as one of the keenest businessmen of the decade, if not the century, for his family-run enterprise.

Growing up penniless in a small Southern town, Lucas arrived in New York in 1946 as a self-described “different sonofabitch.” For two decades, he worked side-by-side with Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson (the inspiration for the 1997 film Hoodlum, starring Laurence Fishburne), serving as the kingpin’s right-hand man until Johnson’s death in 1968—tutored in the ways of gangsters like Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano. And upon Johnson’s death, Lucas seized the reins. He changed the name of the game to the hot new import heroin and immediately put his stamp on the city—with a gun to the head of anyone who dared challenge him.

Fascinated by Jacobson’s article, Academy Award®-winning producer Brian Grazer optioned the project for Imagine Entertainment and met with Pileggi and Lucas to discuss the gangster’s exploits. Grazer was fascinated by the cautionary tale of a man with “the dream of corporate America who found a way to make a deal with individuals in Southeast Asia that could lead him to the highest grade of heroin.” He continues, “After he had this heroin, he would make a deal with U.S. military officers to import it in body bags of U.S. soldiers traveling from Vietnam back into America [the so-called Cadaver Connection]. I thought that was a remarkable, inescapable and interesting idea.” The producer would take this option and turn to veteran screenwriter Steven Zaillian to pen a script based on Lucas’ life.

Oscar® winner Zaillian was equally fascinated with the unlikely relationship between this multimillionaire thug/entrepreneur and this complicated cop-turned-prosecutor. He was certain to weave a shattering parable that didn’t just dramatize Lucas’ rise and fall but told of the juxtaposed path of his chief tracker and nemesis.

Roberts, who spent the late 1960s to early ’70s as an Essex County, New York, detective, was the man ultimately responsible for bringing down the folk hero. Grazer and Zaillian thought that what made this story especially compelling was not just Lucas—who lived by a strict code of family and community as he pushed poison into thousands of lives in the very community in which he lived—but also Roberts, who found his own destiny interwoven with that of the drug kingpin.

Washington, initially resistant to portray a man whose complex rise to power meant the death of so many, was captivated by the script and came aboard for the lead role. He was intrigued by the intricate story of Lucas’ life and believed the businessman who had hurt so many was, in fact, trying to redeem himself through years of penance.

To prepare for the role, Washington says he, “got in a room with Frank, turned on the recorder and talked with him. I didn’t try to imitate him, necessarily, but Frank’s such a charmer; that’s key to his character. I played Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter and did the same thing with him—just hung out with him, got him alone and got the truth—or, hopefully, got some version of it. But with Frank, I said, ‘Don’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. I don’t want to have to testify.’”

In his research, the New York native learned more than he thought possible about the drug trade, specifically, the Country Boys’ Blue Magic. “In those days, as the story is told, heroin was sold for $50,000 to $60,000 a kilo at 50 percent, 60 percent purity,” he comments. “Frank found it 100-percent pure for $4,200 a kilo and sold it on the street at a higher purity and lower price than his competition. You can do the math. He made an incredible amount of money, at one point claiming about a million dollars a day himself.

“However, what interested me in the story was not to glorify a drug dealer, and I told Frank that when I met him.” Interestingly, Washington wrote the biblical passage Isaiah 48:22 [“There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked”] on his shooting script to remind him of Lucas’ journey and quest for redemption.

Game for a third collaboration with the director and a third with producer Grazer, Crowe signed on for the part of the complicated and hardened police officer Roberts. He was interested in how Zaillian’s story captured the time and place in which the corrupt New York City, the borough of Harlem and the slightly simpler world of Roberts’ New Jersey operated as satellites of one another in the drug-fueled era. Corruption had become so rampant within the Narcotics Special Investigations Unit (SIU) community, according to journalist Mark Jacobson in “The Return of Superfly,” that “by 1977, 52 out of 70 officers who’d worked in the unit were either in jail or under indictment.” Roberts was the exception to the norm, and Crowe admired what he learned of the man.

With the two lead talents in place, the filmmakers filled out the enormous all-star ensemble with more than 30 principal roles. Working behind the scenes to bring this remarkable story to the screen, Scott and Grazer also assembled a crew of top-notch craftspersons. They include acclaimed cinematographer Harris Savides (Zodiac, The Yards), BAFTA-winning production designer Arthur Max (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down), Academy Award®-winning costume designer Janty Yates (Gladiator, De-Lovely), two-time Oscar®-winning editor Pietro Scalia (JFK, Black Hawk Down) and composer Marc Streitenfeld (A Good Year).

(August 15, 2007) Two-time Academy Award®-nominated director and accomplished producer John Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers, Hustle & Flow, Boy N The Hood) teams with writer/director Franc. Reyes to bring Illegal Tender, an ultra-contemporary action crime thriller with a Latin flavor, to the screen. Wanda De Jesús and Rick Gonzalez star as a mother and son who will stop at nothing to protect one another and those they love from a team of relentless assassins.

Illegal Tender tells the story of Latino college student Wilson Jr. (Gonzalez) and his courageous mother Millie De Leon (de Jesus) fleeing from the thugs that killed his father (Manny Perez). After years of uncertainty about the true meaning behind their life on the run, Wilson Jr. and his girlfriend, Ana (Dania Ramirez), find themselves in life-threatening danger. Wilson Jr. returns to Puerto Rico to unveil the dark secrets from his family’s past.

Singleton states, “It’s exciting for me to bring Illegal Tender to the screen with talented writer and director Franc. Reyes. We have both been anticipating this for several years and it’s thrilling to see it come to fruition. Even though Latinos drive the national box office every weekend (up to 18% of the market by some estimates), the studios are not actively making cool commercial films for this huge audience. We have a great director telling a great story with a hot cast, plus plenty of cars, romance, adventure, action and music. Illegal Tender brings a full entertainment experience that Latinos and all young people will love.”

Reyes agrees, “It’s a thrill having John Singleton produce this film for me. We talked for a couple of years about working together, which happens all the time in this business without it meaning much. But John is a man of his word. More importantly, he understood my desire to make movies with Latinos, to tell stories about Latinos in this country. Latin American films are finally having their day. I feel fortunate to be a part of it.”

Reyes credits Gonzalez as being the inspiration for the film. “One day Rick called me up and said ‘People are asking me to do movies with Reggaetón music in them. Why don’t you do something?’” Reyes recalls.

“Everyday [Rick] would call and ask me, ‘How far did you get on the script? What’s happening in the story?’”

He chuckles, “If it wasn’t for Rick, this story would not exist.”

Gonzalez describes his character as being initially unprepared to face the challenges that await him. “When you grow up in the inner-city, you have a third eye,” explains Gonzalez, a young actor of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent who grew up in New York.

“But Wilson’s a guy whose been raised in a privileged suburban neighborhood, so he’s a bit of a mama’s boy—he’s gotten everything he wants.”

Portraying this unlikely hero became a tall, but welcomed, order for Gonzalez, who makes his debut as a leading man in the thriller. “It was tricky trying to balance his rage, vulnerability and fear,” explains the actor, who exudes both a soft-spoken, thoughtful demeanor and the vitality of a native New Yorker.

Gonzalez cites his most difficult scene as the one where he is first confronted by the assassins at Wilson’s home. After wounding them in a bloody, action-packed skirmish, the killers try to escape in the midst of the pandemonium. Wilson, Jr. is faced with a moral dilemma: whether or not to kill them. Wilson realizes, the real stakes are the repercussions of letting them live, which may jeopardize the safety of his mother and his beloved younger brother, Randy, played by Antonio Ortiz.

With the dearth of roles in the film industry for Latina actresses, Reyes and Singleton were deluged with auditions from talented and deserving artists who read for the role. But it was the combination of De Jesús’ pedigree and her unforgettable audition that sealed it. In the middle of one scene during her audition (in an unscripted and completely spontaneous moment), De Jesús slapped Gonzalez in the face.

Recalls Singleton, “When she slapped him, it was like a gunshot. Frank and I looked at each other and we were like ‘Whoa, man!’ Rick just took the hit and kept on going. But it pulled something out of him as they continued the scene. You really felt they were this estranged mother and son pair, and we knew Wanda had the part.”

“I’ve loved Wanda for years,” says Reyes, “and when I bumped into her a few years ago, I said to her, ‘We’re gonna work together one day,’ so I was really jazzed that it happened. It’s always amazing when I’m sitting in front of people that are brilliant, because I’m a fan first,” Reyes continues.

“It was wonderful to soak Wanda in and learn from her, because she has been in this business a long time and is incredible.”

Singleton agrees: “Wanda is so beautiful and so intense. One of my favorite scenes is when she sees this woman from her past and realizes the killers will pursue her soon thereafter. She communicates this tension with no words, which is so incredible. Her vulnerability and strength both show. I hope this picture does a lot for Wanda and that people discover her in a whole new way.”

In addition to the high caliber cast Reyes and Singleton brought together for Illegal Tender, the duo had the opportunity to collaborate with musical pioneer and renowned Latin Hip Hop artist Tego Calderón. Both filmmakers greatly admire him and believe his participation was one the film’s highlights.

A native of Puerto Rico, Calderón gained recognition and later achieved stardom in the Latin music world in 2002 with the underground release of a remix collection entitled El Abayarde. The unique and innovative musical art form mixes rhythmic styles from the Caribbean, Latin and American hip-hop with salsa, dance hall, bomba, rumba and the sounds of the blues from the American Deep South.

Says Director Reyes, “Aside from Rick, Tego is the only other person I wrote a role for. It was completely modeled with him in mind. I’ve always thought his music was special, but I needed to get him for this film.”

(June 21, 2007) In Transformers Tyrese Gibson stars as Sergeant Epps, who discovers that he is one of the first present-day humans to come up against robotic powerful aliens, the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. The earth is caught in the middle of an intergalactic war between the two races of alien robots. Anthony Anderson portrays Glen, a hacker who strategizes with the military group to come up with a plan of attack to save the world from the battling Transformers. Also starring as part of the battling military team are Josh Duhamel, Rachael Taylor, Michael O’Neill, John Turturro and Jon Voight. Paramount Pictures will release Transformers nationwide on Tuesday, July 3rd.

Army Captain Lennox (Duhamel) is in charge of a small brigade of Special Forces Rangers, who find themselves the sole survivors of a bizarre attack on their base in Qatar. When Lennox’s squad is surreptitiously transferred back to the U.S., they know they have seen and experienced something earth shattering, literally. They are part of a select group that includes the United States Secretary of Defense (Voight), members of a top secret military unit called Sector 7 (Turturro and O’Neill), along with a beautiful computer analyst (Taylor) and her associate, a smart but uptight hacker (Anderson).

Half way around the world an average teenager, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) asks his father to match funds toward his first car. But Sam’s excitement quickly turns to disappointment with the purchase of a beat-up 1973 Chevy Camaro from a shady used car salesman, played by funnyman Bernie Mac. When Sam is awakened one morning by a distinctive roar and screeching tires, he thinks someone has stolen his car. But the car appears to have a mind of its own. In a valiant effort to pursue the thief, he chases the Camaro only to find himself overpowered by a police cruiser that shockingly transforms into a menacing 20-foot robot. In the days ahead, he and his girlfriend (Megan Fox) are befriended by the robots and they learn that the aliens have come to Earth in a desperate search for their life-source, the Allspark. As the forces of evil seek the key to ultimate power, mankind’s last chance for survival rests in the hands of young Sam.

Like every other boy his age, Gibson was a fan of Transformers action figures and a huge devotee of the television series. “I used to watch the cartoon every day when I got home from school,” he says.

“Who would have thought a cartoon you loved as a kid would end up being such a milestone in your life as a grown man? It’s crazy how things happen.”

When Anderson was asked if he was familiar with Transformers action figures, he immediately broke into song, “Transformers, more than meets the eye, Transformers, robots in disguise!”

Anderson says proudly, “I can sing more of the song. I actually owned Optimus Prime and Megatron when I was growing up. I liked Optimus Prime the best. I played with that guy until he fell apart.

“That’s my era, I grew up watching the cartoon. When I heard there was a possibility of playing a character in the film, I was excited by it, as well as meeting Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.”

Gibson plays a Combat Controller, one of the most highly trained personnel in the Air Force. As a member of a Special Tactics Team that includes Captain Lennox and other several elite Army Rangers, he is responsible for leading those men into uncharted hostile territory, for reconnaissance, for establishing attack zones, and to call in fire power should the need arise, along with a host of other duties to numerous to list. But most important, he and his fellow soldiers are the first line of defense when it comes to defending his country, her people and her allies.

To prepare for the role, Gibson spent time with an actual Combat Controller who was on leave after a tour in Iraq. In the Air Force for over 20 years, Captain Ray Bollinger is a respected expert in his field and gave Gibson much of his technical dialogue for the desert sequences shot at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

“I communicate with all aircraft,” says Gibson who can still recite his team’s site coordinates in his sleep.

“The Blackhawks, stealth bombers, F22’s, they’re all on my wire. And it was a matter of running my lines with Ray because he knows the way it’s supposed to sound; he knows the speed of it, the cadence. The English can sound like Chinese when you’re speaking so fast, but once I became more comfortable in my character and understood what I was saying, it helped. I couldn’t have rehearsed my lines with anyone but Ray.”

For Gibson, putting on the military garb helped him get into character. “Carrying the gun, wearing the heavy packs with all the equipment, the ammunition, you can barely breathe, but when I put it on, I become a chameleon, I am the character.”