Browse Movies : 2004

The natural order of fairy tales is interrupted in the sequel to the Academy Award-winning blockbuster "Shrek". "Shrek 2" sends Shrek, Donkey and Princess Fiona on a whirlwind of new adventures with more fairy-tale favorites to lampoon along the way. After battling a fire-breathing dragon and the evil Lord Farquaad to win the hand of Princess Fiona, Shrek now faces his greatest challenge: the in-laws. Shrek and Princess Fiona return from their honeymoon to find an invitation to visit Fiona's parents, the King and Queen of the Kingdom of Far, Far Away. With Donkey along for the ride, the newlyweds set off. All of the citizens of Far, Far Away turn out to greet their returning Princess, and her parents happily anticipate the homecoming of their daughter and her new Prince. But no one could have prepared them for the sight of their new son-in-law, not to mention how much their little girl had...well...changed. Little did Shrek and Fiona know that their marriage had foiled all of her father's plans for her future...and his own. Now the King must enlist the help of a powerful Fairy Godmother, the handsome Prince Charming and that famed ogre killer Puss In Boots to put right his version of "happily ever after."

Ian Cranston, the great-great grandson of Ichabod Crane, returns to Sleepy Hollow unaware of his significant lineage. Ian's return stirs the vengeful spirit of the Headless Horseman, and a slaughter ensues. Ian, the newcomer, must save his town by confronting the Horseman and settling an old score.

Donnie is a troubled high school student: in therapy, prone to sleepwalking and in possession of an imaginary friend, a six-foot rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. During that time he will navigate teenage life, narrowly avoid death in the form of a falling jet engine, follow Frank's maladjusted instructions and try to maintain the space-time continuum.

Based on the acclaimed best seller by Nicholas Sparks and directed by Nick Cassavetes ("John Q")," The Notebook" is a sweeping love story starring Academy Award nominees James Garner, Gena Rowlands and Joan Allen opposite newcomers Ryan Gosling ("Murder by Numbers") and Rachel McAdams. As a man (Garner) reads from a faded notebook to the woman (Rowlands) he regularly visits at a nursing home, his words bring to life the story of a young couple (Gosling and McAdams) who are separated by World War II, then passionately reunited 14 years later after their lives have taken different paths. Adapted by Jan Sardi with a screenplay by Jeremy Leven (Don Juan DeMarco), "The Notebook" reveals an epic story of love lost and found, of new beginnings and second chances.

After faithfully and happily celebrating Christmas their entire lives, and with their daughter Blair in Peru to serve a stint in the Peace Corps, Luther and Nora Krank are facing the prospect of a very lonely holiday. One blustery Chicago night, Luther glances longingly at an alluring poster in a travel agency window and pictures himself and Nora basking in the glow of the sun on a Caribbean cruise. Though Nora is at first reluctant about going away for the holidays, she soon warms up to the idea. But when their neighbors find out, they are aghast, especially local busybody Vic Frohmeyer. To make matters worse, Luther refuses to put his illuminated Frosty the Snowman on his rooftop. Hemlock Street is famous for it and has won numerous contests sponsored by the local newspaper. The battle of wits between the Kranks and their neighbors quickly escalates, threatening the harmony of the community and, yes, the spirit of Christmas itself. Then, without warning, Luther and Nora get a call from Blair. She is coming home for Christmas afterall and now the Kranks have less than twenty-four hours to get themselves and all the families on Hemlock Street back in the proper Christmas spirit.

Today is the biggest day in the super-organized life of uptight overachiever Jane Ryan (Ashley Olsen). She's due to give a major speech at Columbia University for a competition to win a prestigious scholarship to Oxford University. Meanwhile, her rebellious sister Roxy (Mary-Kate Olsen) is planning to ditch school and go backstage at a Simple Plan music video shoot in Manhattan, where she'll slip her demo tape to the band's A & R team. Despite having so little in common and so much emotional distance between them, the adversarial sisters reluctantly journey together to the Big Apple, but their plans go wildly awry when a mix-up involving Jane's all-important dayplanner lands them in the middle of a shady black market music piracy scheme. Sidetracked, sideswiped and hotly pursued from Chinatown to Harlem by whacked-out truancy officer (Eugene Levy) and a wannabe gangster (Andy Richter), Jane and Roxy reluctantly join forces and find unexpected romance with a charming Senator's son (Jared Padalecki) and a handsome bike messenger (Riley Smith). If Jane doesn't recover her dayplanner – and the crucial speech inside it – she can kiss her college scholarship goodbye. If Lomax finally catches up with Roxy, she'll be drummed out of high school for good. Roxy and Jane seem to have everything going against them…but anything can change in a "New York Minute"!

In this heartwarming comedy from director Garry Marshall ("Runaway Bride", "The Princess Diaries"), Helen Harris (Kate Hudson) is living the life she always dreamed of. Her career at a top Manhattan modeling agency is on the rise; she spends her days at fashion shows and her nights at the city's hottest clubs. But her carefree lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when one phone call changes everything. Helen soon finds herself responsible for her sister's children -- 15-year-old Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), 10-year-old Henry (Spencer Breslin), and 5-year-old Sarah (Abigail Breslin). No one doubts that Helen is the coolest aunt in New York, but what does this glamour girl know about raising kids? The fun begins as Helen goes through the transformation from super hip to super mom, but she quickly finds that dancing at 3 a.m. doesn't mix with getting kids to school on time, advice that Helen's older sister, Jenny (Joan Cusack), is only too quick to dish out. Along the way, Helen finds support in the most unusual place with Dan Parker (John Corbett), the handsome young pastor and principal of the kids' new school, and realizes the choice she has to make is between the life she's always loved and the new loves of her life.

Upon hearing of her mother's death, jaded teenage loner Purslane Hominy Will (Scarlett Johansson) returns to New Orleans for the first time in years, ready to reclaim her childhood home. Expecting to find her late mother's house abandoned, Pursy is shocked to discover that it is inhabited by two of her mother's friends: Bobby Long (John Travolta), a former literature professor, and his young protégé, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht). These broken men, whose lives took a wrong turn years before, have been firmly rooted in the dilapidated house for years, encouraged only by Lawson's faltering ambitions to write a novel about Bobby Long's life. Having no intention of leaving, Pursy, Bobby Long and Lawson are all forced to live together. Yet as time passes, their tenuous, makeshift arrangement unearths a series of buried personal secrets that challenges their bonds, and reveals just how inextricably their lives are intertwined.

Anna is a young widow who is finally getting on with her life after the death of her husband, Sean. Now engaged to be married, Anna meets a ten-year-old boy who tells her he is Sean reincarnated. Though his story is both unsettling and absurd, Anna can't get the boy out of her mind. And much to the concern of her fiancée, her increased contact with him leads her to question the choices she has made in her life.

High-powered New York divorce attorneys Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) and Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) have seen love gone wrong in all its worst case scenarios – so how bad could their own chances be? At the top of their respective games, Audrey and Daniel are a classic study in opposites. She practices law strictly by the book; he always manages to win by the seat of his pants. But soon they're pitted against each other on opposite sides of a nasty public divorce between famous clients (Parker Posey and Michael Sheen), with the case centering on an Irish castle which each future divorcee has their sights set on. Audrey and Daniel travel to Ireland to chase down separate depositions, yet the two lawyers, who have slowly been developing a mutual attraction that neither wants to acknowledge, find themselves thrown together at a romantic Irish country festival. Naturally, after a night of wild celebrating, they wake up the next morning as man and wife. Now they have to return to New York to carry on with their surprising new situation and the ongoing court case. Maybe getting married first is the best way to fall in love?

Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp), a successful writer trying to cope with a divorce, is staying in his rural home, when a stranger turns up on his doorstep and accuses him of plagiarism.

In "Spanglish", the beautifully observed comedy/drama from acclaimed multiple Oscar-winning writer/director/producer James L. Brooks ("As Good As It Gets", "Terms of Endearment"), Flor (Paz Vega), a beautiful, native Mexican woman becomes the housekeeper for the affluent, yet troubled, Clasky family (headed by Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni). The result is a wittily perceptive collision of cultures and values, and a refreshingly honest look at such life-altering commitments as marriage, parenting and devotion to family.

Internationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his crew—Team Zissou—set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive, possibly non-existant Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline co-pilot who may or may not be Zissou's son (Owen Wilson), a beautiful journalist (Cate Blanchett) assigned to write a profile of Zissou, and Zissou's estranged wife and co-producer, Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). They face overwhelming complications including pirates, kidnapping, and bankruptcy.

The true story of one of history's most luminous and influential leaders, Alexander the Great—a man who had conquered 90% of the known world by the age of twenty-seven. Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek and Macedonian armies through 22,000 miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years, and by the time of his death at the age of thiry-two had forged an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. The story chronicles Alexander's path to becoming a living legend, from a youth fueled by dreams of myth, glory and adventure to his lonely death as a ruler of a vast Empire. Alexander is the incredible story of a life that united the Known World and proved, if nothing else, fortune favors the bold.

Since he knows he eats an awful lot of food that his owners, the Howards, probably can't afford, Clifford the Big Red Dog heads out into the world with his friends T-Bone (Kel Mitchell) and Cleo (Cree Summer), hoping to win a lifetime supply of dog food, as they join a circus and meet lots of new friends. Meanwhile, the humans who love him become very worried, as they try to find their best friend.

Max has lived a mundane life as a cab driver for twelve years. The faces have come and gone from his rear-view mirror: people and places he's long since forgotten—until tonight. Vincent is a contract killer. When an off-shore narco-trafficking cartel learns that they're about to be indicted by a federal grand jury, they mount an operation to identify and kill the key witness, and the last stage is tonight. It is on this very night that Vincent has arrived—and five bodies are supposed to fall. Circumstances cause Vincent to hijack Max' taxicab, and Max becomes collateral—an expendable person who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through the night, Vincent forces Max to drive him to each assigned destination. And as the L.A.P.D. and F.B.I. race to intercept them, Max and Vincent's survival become dependent on each other, in ways neither would have imagined.

When his wife is killed by a maniac, a man (Jim Caviezel) sets out on the road in his 1970s Plymouth Hemi-head Barracuda muscle car to find the man responsible, a serial killer who hunts down and kills women using his massive green 1972 Cadillac Eldorado, as a way of expressing his rage about his place in the world, specifically at the woman who broke his heart once upon a time.

Albert Markovski, head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe, Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand, an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a popular chain of retail superstores. When Brad also hires the detectives, they dig deep into his seemingly perfect life and his relationship with his spokes model girlfriend, the voice of Huckabees, Dawn Campbell. Albert pairs up with rebel firefighter Tommy Corn to take matters into their own hands under the guidance of the Jaffes' nemesis, the French radical Caterine Vauban.

Oscar is a fast-talking little fish who dreams big. But his big dreams land him in hot water when a great white lie turns him into an unlikely hero. At first, his fellow fish swallow Oscar's story hook, line and sinker and he is showered with fame and fortune. It's all going along swimmingly, until it starts to become clear that Oscar's tale about being the defender of the Reef is all wet. Oscar is finding out that being a hero comes at a Market Price when his lie threatens to make him the Catch of the Day. Now he has to tread water until he can get the scales to tip back in his favor again.