Benedict Cumberbatch Sophie Hunter Engagement!

Benedict Cumberbatch has become engaged to girlfriend Sophie Hunter - as revealed in a newspaper announcement.

The Sherlock actor's parents chose a traditional way of breaking the news by taking out an ad in the Forthcoming Marriages section of The Times.

The announcement reads: "Mr BT. Cumberbatch and Miss S.I. Hunter: The engagement is announced between Benedict, son of Wanda and Timothy Cumberbatch of London, and Sophie, daughter of Katharine Hunter of Edinburgh and Charles Hunter of London."

His rep confirmed the news to Mirror Online, saying: "I am delighted to confirm this morning’s announcement that Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter are engaged."

The 38-year-old actor was spotted with his partner at a tennis match this summer but they have kept their relationship out of the limelight.

Sophie is a 36-year-old Oxford-educated theater director, and the pair have been spotted out together more regularly recently.

There were reports last month that the star had headed to Edinburgh to seek the blessing of Sophie's mother for the marriage.



When asked about the relationship, Sophie’s mum Anna said cryptically at her home: “Watch this space. You never know.”
Fans have reacted with complete shock to the news, with many hearts no doubt breaking across the globe.
One Twitter user wrote: "Okay he's really gonna be engaged with someone.
"Congrats to Benedict Cumberbatch for your upcoming engagement," while another added: "BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH IS ENGAGED IM CRYING."



“It’s like playing a tennis doubles match. You need to work well together if you are to stay partners for a long time.”
His disappearance from the eligible bachelor lists comes just a matter of weeks after the Hollywood star George Clooney married the lawyer Amal Alamuddin.
Cumberbatch, 38, is enjoying a golden period in his career as one of Britain's most popular actors and he has been lauded for his role as codebreaker Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, with suggestions he could make it onto the Oscars shortlist for the role.

Annabelle Movie

Annabelle is a 2014 American supernatural horror film directed by John R. Leonetti, produced by James Wan, and written by Gary Dauberman. It is both a prequel to and spin-off of The Conjuring. The film stars Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, and Alfre Woodard. The film was released worldwide on October 3, 2014.

Annabelle premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on September 29, 2014.

The film starts with the same opening scene from The Conjuring, in 1968, in which two young women and a young man are telling Ed and Lorraine Warren about their experiences with a doll called Annabelle which, they believe, is haunted.

In 1969, John and Mia Form live in Santa Monica and are expecting their first child. John gives her a doll that she has been trying to find. Mia loves it and puts it with the rest of her doll collection, saying that she "fits right in". At night, Mia hears a murder occurring at their neighbors, the Higgins'. When Mia returns home and call the police as her husband told her to do, she is attacked by a woman holding the doll and a male accomplice. John and the police arrive and kill the man while the woman kills herself. She leaves a bloody symbol drawn on the wall and a drop of her blood falls on the face of the doll in her arms. A news report shows that the assailants were Annabelle Higgins and her boyfriend. They had murdered her parents and are said to have been part of a satanic cult.

Since Annabelle was holding the doll while dying, Mia asks John to throw it away. Later, after a fire caused by the doll, Mia trips over escaping from the fire and goes into labor, Mia gives birth to a healthy baby girl named Leah. The family moves into a new apartment, in Pasadena. Mia unpacks her dolls and finds the one which they had thought discarded. More strange activity plagues Mia and her new baby. She contacts the detective, who informs her of Annabelle and her boyfriend's history in a cult that seeks to summon a demon by claiming a soul. Mia goes to a bookstore run by a woman named Evelyn and determines from a book that the presence haunting her wants Leah's soul. The couple contacts their church's priest, Father Perez, who tries to take the doll with him to church. The ghost of Annabelle attacks him with a demonic-looking creature, and the doll disappears. Evelyn tells Mia that she had a daughter named Ruby that was around Mia's age when she died in a car accident caused by Evelyn. She was so distraught and guilt-ridden that she attempted suicide. However, she claims to have heard Ruby's voice telling her it wasn't her time.

Perez warns John that it was indeed Annabelle's spirit that caused his injuries, and that he felt how much the demon wanted Mia's soul. John rushes to warn Mia. During another attack, Annabelle appears to levitate but, Mia sees the demon holding Annabelle in the air, implying that the doll itself has no power but is being exclusively manipulated and moved by the demon. Meanwhile, the demonic presence pushes Evelyn out of the apartment and taunts Mia while taking her baby. Mia attempts to kill Annabelle and Mia asks him if there is another way, and it says that she can offer him her soul. John and Evelyn break open the door to find Mia ready to jump out the window with Annabelle in her hands. John saves Mia; Evelyn takes hold of Annabelle and decides to make the sacrifice, knowing this is the way she can atone for Ruby's death. She jumps out of the window and is shown at the bottom of the apartment building, dead next to Annabelle. Leah is then found safe and sound in her crib.

Six months later, the Forms have moved on and have not seen Annabelle since then. Elsewhere, the mother of one of the girls in the opening scene purchases Annabelle as a gift for her child. The ending text states that the real Annabelle doll resides in a case in Ed and Lorraine Warren's museum and that it is blessed by a priest twice a month to keep the public safe from the evil that still resides in the doll.

The final shot shows the camera linger on Annabelle, as if she'll make a move before the screen cuts out into black.

John Wick 2014 Film

John Wick is a 2014 American action thriller film directed by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski and written by Derek Kolstad. The film stars Keanu Reeves in the eponymous role.

John Wick (Reeves), who just lost his wife Helen (Moynahan) to cancer, receives a gift from her posthumously in the form of a puppy named Daisy, along with a letter from her saying she arranged for him to have Daisy to help him cope with her demise. Initially indifferent to Daisy, he eventually connects to the puppy as they spend the day driving around in his vintage '69 Mustang. He encounters a trio of Russian gang members at a gas station and their leader Iosef (Allen) insists on buying his car, but John refuses to sell and makes a snide remark at Iosef before leaving. The three follow John to his home, break in at night, and attack John, who watches defenselessly as they kill Daisy before stealing his car. The following day, Iosef attempts to have the car modified by Aureilo (Leguizamo), the owner of a chop shop who refuses to take it and hits Iosef when realizing who it belonged to and what Iosef did to steal it. John subsequently visits Aureilo, who tells him Iosef is the son of Viggo Tarasov (Nyqvist), head of the Russian crime syndicate in New York and John's former employer, before lending him another car. Aureilo, who works with Viggo, is forced to explain what happened to Viggo, who berates Iosef and explains who John Wick is: his best assassin, nicknamed the "Boogeyman", who, before retiring to care for his dying wife five years prior, helped Viggo gain control of his syndicate by single-handedly eliminating the competition.

Viggo, wanting to protect his son, attempts to talk John out of seeking retribution. When John refuses to talk, Viggo sends a hit squad to John's house to execute him, but John swiftly kills the entire squad. Viggo then puts a $2 million bounty on John and first gives the offer to Marcus (Dafoe), a veteran assassin and John's mentor, who begrudgingly accepts. John subsequently seeks refuge at the Continental, a hotel that exclusively caters to assassins with the rule that no business can be conducted on premises. When Viggo learns of this, he doubles the bounty. John learns from Winston (McShane), the owner of the Continental, that Viggo has Iosef protected at his night club the Red Circle. John goes to the club and kills Iosef's friend Victor (Moore) before dispatching most of the security staff, but Iosef escapes after John is subdued by Viggo's henchman Kirill (Bernhardt). John escapes back to the Continental to treat his wounds before being attacked by Ms. Perkins (Palicki), an assassin former acquaintance of John's who had taken the contract to kill him. John eventually subdues Perkins and forces her to reveal the location of Viggo's cash stash before leaving her with a neighbor and friend Harry (Peters) to await her punishment for breaking the hotel rules. Perkins eventually breaks free and kills Harry.

John goes to a church which is a front for the cash stash, eliminates all the guards, and burns Viggo's money as well as hard drives and recordings containing evidence against government officials that Viggo uses as leverage over the city. When Viggo arrives at the church, John ambushes them, eliminating more henchmen before being subdued by Kirill. John is tied up and Viggo taunts him for causing trouble over a dog and thinking he could leave his old life behind. He leaves John to be tortured and killed by Kirill and another henchman, but Marcus, having chosen to protect John, kills the other henchman, allowing John to break free and kill Kirill. John then intercepts Viggo's car and forces him to reveal Iosef's location and pull the bounty, which Viggo begrudgingly does. John goes to the safe house where Iosef is hiding and kills all of the guards before killing Iosef.

Perkins sees that John and Marcus have been in contact and tells Viggo, who has Marcus tortured and killed in his home over his betrayal. Viggo contacts John about Marcus's death, luring John to his home where Perkins is waiting to ambush him. Before she can, she gets called to a secret meeting with Winston, who revokes her membership to the Continental for breaking the rules and has her executed. Winston calls John to inform him of a helicopter coming to the harbor to transport Viggo away. John races to the harbor and executes Viggo's remaining henchmen, he then gets into a fistfight with Viggo on the dock. Viggo pulls out a knife on John and tries to stab him, but John makes Viggo stab him, wounding him and John is able to gain the upper hand by taking Viggo's knife & stabbing him in the side of the neck, Viggo tells John that he'll be seeing him, John also tells Viggo he'll be seeing him too and Viggo slumps over & dies, John ends up at a veterinary hospital to treat his wound before taking a pit-bull out of one of the cages for a walk on the boardwalk where he had his last date with his wife.

A Most Violent Year 2014 Movie

A Most Violent Year is an upcoming American crime drama film directed and written by J. C. Chandor. The film stars Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, Alessandro Nivola, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks and Catalina Sandino Moreno. It will make its world premiere as the opening film of the AFI Fest on November 6, 2014 and be released theatrically on December 31, 2014.

A crime drama set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on a the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

On June 5, 2013 Javier Bardem joined the film to play the lead. On July 16, 2013 Jessica Chastain joined the cast to play the lead role along with Bardem. On December 3, 2013, Oscar Isaac joined the lead cast of the film replacing Bardem. On January 27, 2014 Albert Brooks joined the film, playing Isaac's character's attorney, and actress Catalina Sandino Moreno also joined the film in a supporting role. On January 29, 2014, while the film's shooting was underway, David Oyelowo joined the cast of the film. Other cast members include Ashley Williams, Elyes Gabel, Harris Yulin, Giselle Eisenberg, and Elizabeth Marvel. On February 21, 2014 Alessandro Nivola joined the cast of the film, he'll play Peter Forente, a heating oil distributor who is a competitor to Isaac’s character.

The filming of the film A Most Violent Year began on January 29, 2014 in New York City. The shooting of the film was underway on February 18th in Manhattan, where Chastain was spotted. On February 22, 2014 the filming was underway on Queens Plaza South on Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, NY. Filming resumed in the Maspeth section of Queens on March 2, 2014.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown Movie

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is an American horror film meta-sequel to the 1976 film of the same name. It was made low-budget to keep the same cinéma vérité as Charles B. Pierce's film. The film is produced by Ryan Murphy of Ryan Murphy Productions (Glee, Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story) and Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity, Insidious) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon in his feature-length directorial debut, and is written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. This is one of the last films of Ed Lauter before his death on October 16, 2013. The film was released on October 16, 2014.

While at the drive-in on Halloween during the annual showing of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Corey Holland (Spencer Treat Clark) and Jami Lerner (Addison Timlin) are watching the film. Realizing that she is not enjoying it, they decide to leave. While parked in a secluded area, they begin to talk and kiss, but Lerner sees the Phantom in the woods. They decide to leave but the Phantom breaks the window and makes them get out of the car while pointing a gun at them. He makes Holland remove his pants and lie on the ground. He tells Lerner to turn around and to not look back. The Phantom begins to slash Holland to death. Lerner runs off but is caught when she falls. He tells her, "This is for Mary. Make them remember." Lerner walks back to the drive-in and collapses. The next morning, police interview her at the hospital. Later that night, Lerner and her grandmother, Lillian (Veronica Cartwright), watch the news about the attack. Lerner asks her grandmother what she remembers from the original attacks. She researches the crimes. The next day, she visits Holland's funeral.

Two days before Thanksgiving, Kendra Collins/Thompson goes to the airport to meet her boyfriend, Daniel Torrens, returning from the military. They have sex at a motel. He leaves to get snacks from the vending machine. Kendra hears something and looks out the window. The Phantom smashes the window with her boyfriend's severed head. She jumps out of the bathroom window, breaking her leg as she lands. She limps to the car but is killed while trying to start it. Lerner receives a phone call from Holland's phone. The Phantom tells her, "I'm going to do it again and again until you make them remember." She decides to tell her police escort, Deputy Foster (Joshua Leonard), about the incident. The next day, residents secure their houses and go to a town meeting.

Lerner goes to the City Hall archives to continue her research. She is helped by Nick (Travis Tope) and they become friends. At the police station, Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Morales (Anthony Anderson) takes over the investigation. While continuing her research at home, Lerner receives an e-mail from "Texas Phantom". Lerner takes this to the police and reveals her theories but they are disproven. Nick is waiting for Jami when she returns home and he asks her out to the vigil being held for the Phantom victims. While there, the Phantom shows up and is shot down by a marine officer. The news is told to the host of a social event and they celebrate. Afterwards, band members Johnny and Roy leave the dance and is warned by Deputy Tillman (Gary Cole) to go straight home. They decide, instead, to park at a lonely junkyard. While there, they see the Phantom. Johnny runs from the car. Roy drives off but is hit in the head and crashes. Johnny is beaten and Roy gets tied up. The Phantom recreates the trombone weapon from the original film. Johnny is then shot to death before Roy is stabbed to death. The next day, Deputy Foster tells Lerner that the man that was shot down at the vigil was a suicidal teen and that there were two more murders.

Texas Ranger Morales and Chief Deputy Tillman visit Reverend Cartwright (Edward Herrmann) at his church. They discovered that he sent Lerner the e-mail, but they do not believe he is the Phantom. Nick meets up with Lerner and tells her that he found out that Charles B. Pierce's son is still alive and lives in Texarkana. Chief Deputy Tillman goes to a bar on Christmas Eve and meets up with a woman. At home, while she is giving him a blowjob, he is shot through the eye. She runs into a farm field and is killed by the Phantom.

Lerner and Nick visit Charles Pierce Jr. (Denis O'Hare) where they learn about Hank McCreedy, a sixth victim of the original Phantom whose story was forgotten. He gives his opinion that the new Phantom is Hank McCreedy's grandson, because the family is angered that McCreedy's death was not remembered. Lerner is told that Hank McCreedy's wife was named Mary. That night, Lillian finds out that Lerner was accepted to college in California. Lillian decides to move to California so she can go to school. She tells Nick she is leaving in the morning and they have sex. Nick walks home and is attacked by the Phantom. While leaving town, Lerner pulls into a gas station and walks inside. She soon hears gunshots and finds her grandmother dying by the vehicle. The Phantom is seen shooting from a window in a nearby building. Lerner runs down the street and into the old Union train station. The Phantom follows her inside and calls her phone to find her. She runs to the train tracks where she finds Nick's body. She is shot down by arrows while trying to escape. While immobile, she is confronted by two Phantom Killers. One is revealed to be Deputy Foster and the other is Holland, Lerner's "dead" boyfriend who faked his death. Deputy Foster reveals that he is McCreedy's grandson. Holland is shot and killed by Foster. While Foster is attacking Lerner, she grabs his gun and shoots him. Lerner moves on with her life and goes to college.

The Homesman 2014 Film

What more is there for Tommy Lee Jones to do with a Western? We have seen him in a cowboy hat on screen so much it is almost part of his head. To my surprise, Jones has not made a film as a director set in the Old West since the 1995 TV movie The Good Old Boys, which I have not seen. I have seen his last two films, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and HBO's The Sunset Limited, and I have come to the conclusion Jones is a very underrated director. He knows how to expertly pace a scene to bring about the maximum amount of tension. This is particularly evident in The Sunset Limited, where he and Samuel L. Jackson talk for ninety minutes, and every second of it is riveting. For his latest film, The Homesman, Jones tries to make a traditional, epic Western centered on a strong woman. However, its gender politics become increasingly confused the further along the film goes and really hinder something that could have been great.

Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) is thirty-one years old and unmarried, living alone on a farm in Nebraska. She can ride a horse, shoot a gun, cook a pie, plow a field, and just about anything else you can do on a farm. The reason for her being single is she is "too bossy", which we hear from a man she asks to marry. During a church meeting led by the town reverend (John Lithgow), we learn three wives of the locals have gone "a little funny in the head", as President Muffley would say, due to the hostile conditions of the West and a surprising amount of dead babies. Mary volunteers to take these women up to Iowa, so they can be better taken care of, now that their husbands have given up on them. On her way out, she comes across a drifter, wearing only his undergarments, sitting atop a horse with a noose around his neck (Tommy Lee Jones). In exchange for his life (and some money), she employs him to help with her journey.

The film then becomes a whole mish-mash of different genres. It is sometimes a thriller about the dangers of the Old West. It is sometimes a drama about examining Mary's psychology. It is even sometimes a buddy, road trip comedy. Jones clearly wants this film to be a big epic, covering large swaths of material and various tones, but he never can nail down one to grab hold of. Each one is executed fairly well on their own, but they never find a good flow from one to the other. We will occasionally cut to flashbacks of the three women on their roads to madness, and the jarring tonal shift to something horrific always feels off, especially if the previous scene is Jones doing something wacky. And he has his fair share of wacky scenes. I mean, there are two separate scenes where he drunkenly sings and dances like a fool.

What really hurts The Homesman is its supposed feminist angle, and the large departure the film takes away from that. Everything we have been told about Mary allows us to think she will figure out a way to maneuver her way through this long and difficult journey. However, about half-way to two-thirds of the way through the movie, the film is no longer about a strong woman. It is about a woman who redeems a man. A major thing happens at the end of the second act which is totally unbelievable for Mary to do given everything that has proceeded it and completely took me out of the rest of the movie. For an hour and half, we have been told the movie is about this one thing, and in one decision, it becomes all about a man fulfilling his duty. It is a massive issue the film, which had been very solid up until that point, can never fully come back from.

Director of photography Rodrigo Prieto captures the West and all of its dangers beautifully. When these characters are traversing through the snow, you can feel how cold and desolate the space is. Westerns often just want to go with the majestic shots (and this film certainly has those), but it also has its moments of stark, harsh reality. Also, a shot of a building on fire at night with someone silhouetted in the flame will always be beautiful.

Tommy Lee Jones did not make a bad film here. On a technical level, it is quite impressive. He was just confused about the story he wanted to tell. He tries to cover so many things, and only some reach their full potential. Then, the gender politics of everything is rather troubling, though I do not think Jones did that with bad intentions. I think it was just the way he knew how, and unfortunately, it is pretty troublesome. I had the intention of giving this film a C+ coming out of the theater, but then I remembered James Spader shows up for a scene as a snobby hotel manager with an Irish brogue. A film containing that automatically gets a bump in its grade. You know you all agree with me.

The Prince 2014 Film

It’s often an arrogant and presumptuous critical tic to reflexively refer to turkeys starring major stars as “paycheck projects,” as though venality were the only possible reason a good actor might end up in a bad film. Yet it’s hard to think of a better explanation for the presence of John Cusack and Bruce Willis in Brian A. Miller’s “The Prince.” With the latter turning in one of his least committed onscreen performances, and the former appearing to be suffering from the worst migraine of his life every second he’s on camera, it’s up to star Jason Patric to somehow salvage this basic-cable-quality actioner, yet his options are limited. A brief theatrical run seems a mere formality for the Lionsgate release, with on-demand offering more promising returns.

Set very prominently in New Orleans, though shot in Mobile, Ala., “The Prince” seems to imagine itself a sort of Cajun-seasoned take on “Taken,” tossing in a dash of “Unforgiven” and a soupcon of David Mamet’s “Spartan” for extra flavor. The results, however, are far more “Grand Theft Auto: Ninth Ward,” with rote backstories, videogame-like shootouts and repetitive, uninteresting interrogations hustling the pic through its by-the-numbers paces.

Protagonist Paul (played by a competent if uncharismatic Patric), is a humble, ripped, widowed Mississippi auto mechanic with a shady past in the New Orleans criminal underworld. When his college-age daughter (Gia Mantegna) goes missing, he’s forced to sharpen up his dormant ass-kickery chops and revisit his old stomping grounds, shaking down a series of token hoods and reawakening some sleeping grudges from his bad old days in the Big Easy, most of which revolve around resident crime lord Omar (Willis, all but checking his watch). Violence quickly and inevitably ensues.

Along the way, he’s joined by his daughter’s snotty, coked-up friend Angela (Jessica Lowndes), who provides some moderately valuable intel at the start, and then inexplicably sticks around for the duration of the film to complain, scream and occasionally provide strange doses of sexual tension. Midway through, the pic introduces another ally in Paul’s old running buddy Sam (Cusack), who sighs and grimaces through his scenes as a luxury hotel-bound hustler.

No one seems to want to reinvent the wheel here, and an idle Netflix user could certainly do far worse when browsing for mindless actioners. But the overall air of shrugging obligation from those both in front of and behind the camera proves contagious. Rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jung Ji-hoon (better known as Korean pop superstar Rain) have minor, not entirely comfortable roles which seem to serve no purpose other than to broaden the pic’s potential appeal to younger auds and Asian demos, respectively. The action sequences are competently directed, but exhibit virtually no flair or invention, as Patric simply stands there shooting at waves of anonymous henchmen until they all fall down.

If nothing else, “The Prince” does seem to afford its array of weaponry greater than average care, and unlike most mid-grade shoot-‘em-ups, the film actually shows its central avenger frequently stopping to reload, and even making multiple trips to an ammo shop between gun battles. If only the rest of the film paid as much attention to detail.