March 2005 Movies

John Travolta is back as Chili Palmer in "Be Cool", a sequel to the comedy smash "Get Shorty". This time, Chili becomes a different kind of "hit" man—he abandons the movie industry to bring his wiseguy skills and negotiation tactics to the music business. When a friend is offed while they're at lunch, Chili takes the opportunity to visit the guy's wife, Edie (Uma Thurman), and pitch himself as her new business partner at an independent record label. With a promising young pop-star-in-training as his protégé (Christina Milian), Chili has to juggle her faux-urban manager (Vince Vaughn), his gay, wannabe-actor bodyguard (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), Russian mobsters, and an eloquent gangsta music producer (Cedric the Entertainer,) to save the label and land a hit—and keep from getting popped himself.

A hit man for Mossad is given the mission to track down the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex Nazi officer, who might be still alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister. He wants to convince her to come back to Germany for their Fathers birthday party. The two men set out on an extended tour of the country during which, Axel's frank and open attitude challenges Eyal's rigid, clichéd values. Their friendship grows until he learns of Axel's homosexuality. With this final straw he leaves. To finish his mission Eyal has to go to Germany. He meets Axel once more and succeeds in being invited to the family party where secrets will be revealed.

Vin Diesel redefines what it means to be an action hero in the heartwarming family action-comedy "The Pacifier". Diesel stars as Navy SEAL Shane Wolfe who, as an elite member of the world's fiercest and most highly trained force thought he was prepared to take on any duty no matter how perilous or impossible... until he tried baby-sitting. Assigned to protect the five out-of-control children of an assassinated scientist working on vital government secrets, Shane is suddenly faced with the juggling two outrageously incompatible jobs: fighting the bad guys while keeping house. Replacing his usual arsenal of wetsuits and weapons with diapers and juice boxes, Shane not only must battle a deceptive enemy but wrangle teen rebel Zoe (Brittany Snow), sullen 14 year-old Seth (Max Theriot), 8 year-old Ninja-wanna-be Lulu (Morgan York), as well as 3 year-old Peter and baby Tyler - not to mention their off-beat Romanian Nanny (Carol Kane). But while drop zones, demolitions and destroying enemy targets come naturally to Shane, he has no idea what tough really is until he pits his courage against diapering, den-mothering and driver's education. He's truly a SEAL out of water, and now it's up to this one-time lone warrior to take on the most important mission of his life: keeping a family together.

A military veteran returns to his native Vermont suffering from bouts of amnesia. When he is accused of murder and lands in an asylum, a well-meaning doctor puts him on a heavy course of experimental drugs, restrains him in a jacket-like device, and locks him away in a body drawer of the basement morgue. The process sends him on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death (but not who did it or how) in four day's time. Now the only question that matters is: can the woman he meets in the future save him?

Set in the exotic country of South Africa, Duma tells the powerful adventure tale of an unbreakable bond of friendship between a cheetah named Duma and an intrepid young boy named Xan (Alexander Michaletos), who faces the true test of love when he must cross the whole of Southern Africa to return his best friend to his rightful home in the wilds. On his journey, Xan learns that everything always changes, but not love.

Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day.

"Gunner Palace" reveals the complex realities of the situation in Iraq not seen on the nightly news. Told first-hand by our troops, "Gunner Palace" presents a thought provoking portrait of a dangerous and chaotic war that is personal, highly emotional, sometimes disturbing, surprisingly amusing ... and thoroughly fascinating. Filmmaker Michael Tucker, who lived with 2/3 Field Artillery, a.k.a. "The Gunners" for two months, captures the lives and humanity of these soldiers whose barracks are the bombed-out pleasure palace of Uday Hussein (nicknamed Gunner Palace), situated in the heart of the most volatile section of Baghdad. With total access to all operations and activities, Tucker's insider footage provides a rare look at the day-to-day lives of these soldiers on the ground—whether swimming in Uday's pool and playing golf on his putting green or executing raids on suspected terrorists, enduring roadside bombs, mortar attacks, RPGs and snipers.

Three generations of Chinese women attempt to reconcile the cultural chasm between their traditional heritage and the everyday influences of life in America. Finding herself pregnant, career girl Kim was forced into an unhappy marriage in the late 70s. But Kim decided to flee, leaving her infant daughter in her mother's care. Now, year's later, she returns to find her independent daughter Genie involved in a relationship with black DJ Michael, causing controversy.

This heartwarming comedy centers on two brothers, John Joe and Jimmy, who haven't seen each other in twenty years. Having parted on bad terms, they meet at the All Ireland traditional music finals as leaders of rival Irish dance bands. Romance ensues between Anne (Andrea Corr), a beautiful fiddle player, and Teddy, a brilliant young flute player, members of the rival bands leading to more than just a musical rivalry.

The countdown is on—in 7 days' time Britain converts to the Euro. It's the biggest opportunity the criminal world has ever had. Billions of sterling head for the incinerator. When a railway heist goes wrong and an enormous bag of money falls from the sky into the hands of Damian and Anthony, there's only one thing to do—spend it like there's no tomorrow.... But how can a 7 and 9 year-old hope to spend a quarter of a million quid a week? Anthony's black market operations bring hyper-inflation to the school playground and Damian wants to help the poor, but they're in short supply. Oh, and the train robbers want their money back. Will they manage to spend the money before it's worthless. Will the school authorities discover what's going on? Or will the robbers get there first?

Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a "Washington Post" journalist. His editor provocatively sends him to South Africa to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, in which the perpetrators of murder and torture on both sides during the Apartheid era are invited to come forward and confront their victims. By telling the unvarnished truth and expressing contrition, they may be granted amnesty. Can the deep wounds of Apartheid be healed through reconciliation? Langston is deeply sceptical. He tracks down Col. De Jager, the most notorious torturer in the SA Police and tries to penetrate the mind of a monster, an experience that obliges him to confront his own demons. Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche), is an Afrikaans poet who is covering the hearings for radio. As a white South African she is shattered by the accounts of the cruelty and depravity committed by her fellow countrymen. Anna and Langston must both question their sense of identity. Where do they each belong? How responsible are they for what is done in the name of their respective countries? The moving testimony of the victims affects them deeply. In different ways they are both estranged from their families, and their shared experience draws them ever closer to each other. It is a story charting the unfathomable depths of human cruelty and the redeeming power of forgiveness and love.

Set on a world populated entirely by robots, this is the story of a young genius, Rodney (Ewan McGregor), who wants to make robots capable of making the world a better place, but he finds his dream challenged by a corporate tyrant and a master inventor, Big Weld (Mel Brooks), while also being seduced by a sexy corporate robot, Cappy (Halle Berry).

This is the story of Carmen (Natalia Verbeke), a young Spanish flamenco dancer living in London, who meets Kit (Gael Garcia Bernal), a Brazilian actor, the night before her wedding (to James D'Arcy) and ends up kissing him. What ensues is a plot of subterfuge to cover up their newfound affair.

Sharp-witted Terry Wolfmeyer, a suburban wife and mother, has her life take an unusual turn when her husband unexpectedly disappears. Struggling to deal with his sudden absence, Terry finds herself increasingly at odds with her four headstrong daughters and regularly drowning her anger in alcohol, until she develops an offbeat relationship with her next-door neighbor, Denny. A once-great baseball star turned radio DJ, Denny becomes a drinking buddy for Terry and slowly evolves into her source of strength, as well as an ad-hoc father to her daughters. But things get complicated as Terry's daughters grow accustomed to having Denny around while attempting to juggle not only their mother's romantic dilemmas, but their own.

Bruce Willis stars as an LAPD hostage negotiator, who withdraws to the countryside to become chief of a two-man police department after a bloody standoff. Instead of achieving a sense of peace in the small town, he finds himself embroiled in negotiations to save his wife and daughter. Messner will play an FBI operative who comes onto the crime scene to work with Willis' character and retrieve computer disks.

A high-school ugly duckling transforms into a swan in Walt Disney Pictures' "Ice Princess." Brainy Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg) has never quite fit in. Caught between her fantasy of becoming a championship figure skater and her strong-willed mother (Joan Cusack), who has her on the fast track to Harvard, she can only hope to be like Nikki, Tiffany and Gen (Hayden Panettiere) - three elite skating prodigies who are ruthlessly competing on the US Figure Skating circuit (and have attitudes to match). But when Casey gets the chance to train with Gen and her coach, a disgraced former skating champion who also happens to be Gen's mother (Kim Cattrall), she must dash her own mother's hopes in order to pursue her dream. Now, with only the support of Gen's teenage brother, a hunky Zamboni driver (Trevor Blumas), Casey takes on the challenge of her life when she finds herself competing against the best to make it into the championship circuit and become a real "ice princess."

A retro science-fiction epic set in Victorian England, Steam Boy features an inventor prodigy named Ra Stim who receives a mysterious metal ball containing a new form of energy capable of powering an entire nation. This young boy must use it to fight evil, redeem his family, and save London from destruction. The lush Victorian interiors and the elegance of the era's mechanical design allows Otomo to create dazzling visual backgrounds and machines for this film.

Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts reprises the role of investigative reporter Rachel Keller in "The Ring 2", the sequel to the horror hit "The Ring