October 2005 Movies

"Two For the Money" is a drama of high stakes set in the adrenalized world of wheeler-dealers whose fortunes are won and lost betting on sports. Matthew McConaughey stars as Brandon Lane, a former college football star whose uncanny ability to predict the outcome of a game introduces him to an unexpected new career when his gridiron glory is sidelined by a crushing injury.

Brandon's talent makes him a prime candidate for recruitment by Walter Abraham (Oscar®-winner Al Pacino), the head of one of the biggest sports consulting operations in the country. Walter hires the small town ex-athlete and grooms him into a shrewd front man. Brandon soon begins to enjoy his status as a Manhattan golden boy and finds himself growing comfortable with Walter's high-rolling lifestyle. The surrogate father/surrogate son relationship fattens Walter's business and personal accounts...until Brandon's golden touch begins to falter at the same time that Walter's manipulation of his protégé crosses the line.

With millions of dollars on the line, Brandon and Walter engage in a deadly game of con versus con, each one trying to maintain the upper hand while everyone in their world, including Walter's wife, Toni (Rene Russo), are drawn into the escalating duel-where ultimately everything isn't what it appears to be.

A waiter for four years since high school, Dean (Justin Long) has never questioned his job at Shenanigan's. But when he learns that Chett, a high school classmate, now has a lucrative career in electrical engineering, he's thrown into turmoil about his dead-end life. Dean's friend Monty (Ryan Reynolds) is in exactly the same boat, but he couldn't care less. More concerned with partying and getting laid by underage girls, Monty is put in charge of training Mitch (John Francis Daley), a shy new employee. Over the course of one chaotic shift, Mitch gets to know the rest of Shenanigan's quirky staff: Monty's tough-talking ex-girlfriend, Serena (Anna Faris), Shenanigan's over-zealous manager, Dan (David Koechner), and head cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman), who's obsessed with a senseless staff-wide competition known only as "The Game"...

Two sisters give up on their relationship after one sleeps with the other's boyfriend. When all seems to be lost, a grandmother they never new existed enters their lives to bring them back together and reconcile their differences.

It's 'vege-mania' in Wallace and Gromit's neighborhood, and our two enterprising chums are cashing in with their humane pest-control outfit, "Anti-Pesto." With only days to go before the annual Giant Vegetable Competition, business is booming, but Wallace & Gromit are finding out that running a "humane" pest control outfit has its drawbacks as their West Wallaby Street home fills to the brim with captive rabbits. Suddenly, a huge, mysterious, veg-ravaging "beast" begins attacking the town's sacred vegetable plots at night, and the competition hostess, Lady Tottington, commissions Anti-Pesto to catch it and save the day. Lying in wait, however, is Lady Tottington's snobby suitor, Victor Quartermaine, who'd rather shoot the beast and secure the position of local hero—not to mention Lady Tottingon's hand in marriage. With the fate of the competition in the balance, Lady Tottington is eventually forced to allow Victor to hunt down the vegetable chomping marauder. Little does she know that Victor's real intent could have dire consequences for her and our two heroes.

Charlie Price sets out to rescue his dad's ailing Northampton Shoe Factory with the help of a sassy Soho cabaret star named Lola by manufacturing erotic women's boots.

"Good Night, and Good Luck." takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.

"Paradise Now" is the story of what may be the last 48 hours in the lives of two Palestinian men—friends since childhood - who have been recruited as suicide bombers. When they are intercepted at the Israeli border and separated from their handlers, a young woman who discovers their plan causes them to reconsider their actions. But with pressure mounting, time running out, and passions running high...there's no way to know which way they will go.

In "Where the Truth Lies", based on Rupert Holmes' acclaimed novel of the same name, Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth star as Lanny Morris and Vince Collins, the country's hottest entertainment duo. Lanny and Vince are knee deep in all the wealth and power that comes with such fame. That is, until a beautiful girl (Rachel Blanchard) turns up naked and dead in the pair's hotel suite after a night of wild partying. Years later, an intrepid reporter (Alison Lohman) sets out to discover what happened that night, only to be lured into the seductive games of these men.

Keira Knightley stars in the wild action thriller "Domino", the latest project from director Tony Scott. A trademark Scott film, "Domino" presents an entertaining mix of gritty action, biting comedy and sharp visuals.

The film tells the true story of Domino Harvey, daughter of legendary actor Laurence Harvey and a former Ford model who rejected her privileged Beverly Hills life to become a bounty hunter.

In Revolution Studio's horror/thriller "The Fog" there really is something out there in the dark. In the small town of Antonio Bay, a terrifying and malevolent force hidden within a thick and eerie fog terrorizes its residents. Shrouded by the fog lies a ghastly secret of merciless revenge, one that the town's inhabitants would do well to unravel—before it's too late.

After his invention causes the Oregon shoe corporation he works for to lose millions of dollars, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is fired for his mistake, and then dumped by his girlfriend, Ellen. Hopelessly depressed, Drew decides to end his life when he gets a phone call. His father has died, and Drew has to go back to his family's small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown to make sure his father's dying wishes are fulfilled. On his trip home, Drew meets a flight attendant, Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), with whom he falls in love, and it seems as if Drew's life may be back on track.

Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.

"Kids in America" is a reality-based dramedy about the experiences of young people in modern-day America. Set in the fictional Booker High School a diverse group of students are tired of seeing their freedoms taken away. They band together and change their world by empowering themselves and their community to protect freedoms of expression and speech.

Holden Donovan (Gregory Smith) is fed up with Principal Weller (Julie Bowen) who goes to great lengths to stop the students from exercising their right to free expression. She expels a young woman for passing out condoms and advocating safe sex on national "safe sex" day and suspends two boys who were kissing in the hallway. Meanwhile, she is running for the Superintendent of their school district, which will give her a chance to practice her brand of administration beyond Booker High School.

The students have an ally in Mr. Drucker (Malik Yoba) one of their teachers who encourages them to fight for their rights. He pays a price for his leadership and is fired by Principal Weller. He decides to use his dismissal to make a change of his own, by producing a documentary chronicling the experiences of students who are faced with similar issues.

Mirabelle is the "shopgirl" of the title, a young woman, beautiful in a wallflowerish kind of way, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus "selling things that nobody buys anymore..." Slightly lost, slightly off-kilter, very shy, Mirabelle charms because of all that she is not: not glamorous, not aggressive, not self-aggrandizing. Still, there is something about her that is irresistible. Mirabelle captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age. As they tentatively embark on a relationship, they both struggle to decipher the language of love - with consequences that are both comic and heartbreaking.

Deacon, Matt and Fred will do anything for even a glimpse of sex and spend their mornings pirating porno movies from Fred's after school job at the video store. But when Fred is fired, the well runs dry, and our heroes come up with a new plan: make their own "adult" film.

Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) was once a great horseman, whose gifts as a trainer were now being wasted on making other men's fortunes. Sonya was a great horse whose promising future on the racetrack was suddenly cut short by a career-ending broken leg. Considered as good as dead to her owner, who also happens to be Ben's boss, Sonya is given to Ben as severance pay, along with his walking papers. Now, it will take the unwavering faith and determination of Ben's young daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), to bring these two damaged souls together in a quest for a seemingly impossible goal: to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.

In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", a breezy take on Black's trademark buddy action/comedy oeuvre, a petty thief (Robert Downey Jr.) is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl (Michelle Monaghan) and a detective (Val Kilmer) who has been training him for his upcoming role.

A reality-bending thriller about a psychologist whose suicidal client makes bizarre predictions that to the psychologist's mounting terror, begin to come true. The shrink must race against time to save everything he loves before it disappears.

Charlize Theron plays single mom Josey Aimes, who rallies her female coworkers to rise above unfair treatment they face at a local mining company. Frances McDormand plays Glory, Josey's closest friend; Sissy Spacek and Richard Jenkins are Josey's parents, Alice and Hank; Sean Bean plays Glory's boyfriend Kyle; Woody Harrelson is Josey's lawyer, Bill White; Jeremy Renner is Bobby, a mineworker and Josey's former classmate; and Michelle Monaghan plays Sherry, Josey's fellow mineworker.

In the customarily closed world of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Moshe and Malli, a married couple, are suffering through a financial crisis. They pray for help, but instead of a miracle two suspect strangers with criminal pasts appear on their doorstep.

This film explores the growth of anti-Semitism since 9/11 and challenges to those who believe the Jews were responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center.

Millions of devoted fans worldwide have been spellbound by the dark invention of its adventures . . . have awaited its every incarnation with urgent anticipation . . . and have devoted countless hours, days and weeks to conquering its hidden mysteries: Doom. When the home-computer game "Doom" was first launched in 1993, no one could have foreseen the legion of fans it would create and the mania surrounding its every new permutation. "Doom" and its successive installments have transfixed gamers worldwide for over a decade and have sold millions of copies (while chalking up an unprecedented tens of millions of downloads as shareware). It is, simply, the most explosive home-computer game franchise phenomenon in history. Now, the game that made history is jumping from computer screens to the motion picture screen: get ready for "Doom". Set countless years in the future and told in the hyper- kinetic, kamikaze style that made its gaming predecessor a global phenomenon, the science fiction action adventure "Doom" takes the viewer to the far corners of the galaxy with a fully-realized vision of a dark and disturbing future.

The revolutionary 20th-century dance troupe known as the Ballets Russes began as a group of Russian refugees, who never danced in Russia, and became not one but two rival dance troupes. 'Ballets Russes' begins with the company's Diaghilev-era in turn-of-the-century Paris -- when artists such as Nijinsky, Balanchine, Picasso, Miro, Matisse and Stravinsky united in an unparalleled collaboration. The film then explores the company's halcyon days of the 1930s and '40s, when the Ballets Russes toured America, astonishing audiences schooled in vaudeville with artistry never before seen, The company's demise came in 1950s and '60s when rising costs, rocketing egos, outside competition and internal mismanagement ultimately brought the revered Ballets Russes to its knees.

"Prime" is a sophisticated, character comedy set in New York City about Rafi (Uma Thurman), a recently divorced 37-year-old career woman from Manhattan, and what happens when Dave (Bryan Greenberg), a talented 23-year-old painter from Brooklyn, falls in love with her.

"Prime" looks at love from everyone's point of view—friends, relatives and in this case, Rafi's therapist (Meryl Streep)—and follows all who come apart, and some who pull it together, when two people fall in love.

Described as being in the vein of "About Schmidt" and "American Beauty". The story follows a divorced Chicago weatherman who is up for a new job on a network morning show in New York. As he is preparing to leave for the Big Apple, he must make peace with his ex-wife and kids.

With a family to consider, the courageous Zorro must now weigh the consequences of his secretive, crime-fighting, swashbuckling life: he has become estranged from both his wife, Elena, and child, Joaquin. His son, only knowing that 'papa is away on business' has a difficult time dealing with his father's absence. And his adventure-loving wife must maintain a level of normalcy for the trio's home-life, much to her frustration. However, while Zorro tries to pull himself away from dangerous crusading, his heart speaks to him of a great darkness, and he prays for the courage and strength to, once again, put on the mask—realizing that there is a major threat brewing in California. However, his family falls into peril as he fights the dark forces, and thus, Zorro, is once again called to save the day against a new nemesis.

While investigating the bloody aftermath of a grizzly murder, Detective Eric Mason (Donnie Wahlberg) has the feeling that it is the work of Jigsaw, the notorious killer who disappeared leaving a trail of bodies—and parts—behind.

And Mason is right.

Jigsaw is at work again. But instead of two people locked in a room with only one unthinkable way out, there are eight. Eight strangers—unaware of their connection to each other—forced to play out a game that challenges their wits and puts their lives in jeopardy.

A grief-stricken screenwriter unknowingly enters a three-way relationship with a woman and her film executive husband - to chilling results.

A developmentally handicapped young man comes to L.A. to pursue his dream of playing professional basketball for the Clippers.

Heidi is a beautiful teen. After a "misunderstanding" with her mother, she runs away from home and ends up at a ski-resort, where everyone comes on to her. With her innocence at stake, she learns about the true meaning of life, love and happiness.

This is a compilation of three different short films entitled 'Cut,' 'Box' and 'Dumplings' by directors from Japan, Korea and China. Each deals with the theme of human monstrosity.