2003 Most Anticipated Movies (Page #3)

"Samsara" is a spiritual love story set in the majestic landscape of Ladakh, in the Himalayas, about one man's quest to find enlightenment. Tashi, a brilliant young disciple, is just completing three years of solitary meditation in a remote hermitage. Brought out of a deep trance, Tashi is taken back to his ancient monastery where he slowly recovers his strenght, but his return has unexpected results. Despite a life devoted to the rigors of spiritual development, he finds himself experiencing a suprisingly profound sexual awakening. These feelings coincide with his journey to a village to perform a harvest blessing where he meets Pema, a beautiful young woman. For the first time, Tashi begins to question the spiritual values of his monastic existence, realizing that one has to experience worldly existence in order to renounce it. Through Tashi's eyes, this spiritual and moving love story chronicles one man's discovery of the promise of "Samsara" - the world.

Eager but accident-prone young executive Tom Stansfield has finally happened upon the opportunity of his lifetime: he can impress his megalomaniac boss and the boss's luscious daughter, Lisa, by simply house-sitting their lavish mansion for one night. It's a plan that could lead to love and success, if only the guests didn't keep arriving. From director David Zucker ("The Naked Gun", "Airplane!") comes an outrageous, fast-and-rowdy romantic comedy about a young man whose quest for the girl of his dreams is interrupted by a constant flow of calamities. One by one, a barrage of wild and crazy visitors take over the house he's supposed to be watching and turn it upside-down, as well as inside out.

The morning after his wild bachelor party, Paul wakes up and finds a beautiful, strange woman, named Becky, sleeping soundly in his bed. He soon discovers that Becky is his fiancee's cousin. Since Paul can't remember much about the night before, he naturally assumes the worst--that he's cheated on his adoring fiancee, Karen. And so, the guilt-ridden Paul spends the week before his wedding, scrambling to cover up his supposed infidelity.

Two friends from Brooklyn (Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson) are forced to deliver mob money to Australia. Their misadventures begin when one of them places his red jacket on a kangaroo while attempting to snap a picture. When the kangaroo bounces off, they realize the mob money is in the jacket and are forced to give chase through the Outback.

In director Antoine Fuqua's new action-adventure film, Bruce Willis stars as Lt. A.K. Waters, the loyal veteran officer of a Navy S.E.A.L unit. When he's sent into the heart of Africa, the usually hard-bitten Waters finds himself deeply conflicted at having to choose between following orders and the dictates of his own conscience. Though a fictionalization, Tears of the Sun deals with the gritty realism of human conflict as Lt. Waters travels to war-torn central Africa to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a U.S. citizen who runs a mission in the countryside. But when Lt. Waters arrives Dr. Kendricks refuses to abandon the refugees under her care. She implores Waters to escort them on a dangerous trek through the dense jungle to the nearby border. During the journey the S.E.A.L.s find themselves the unwitting guardians of a man sought by the rebel militia. This further endangers their already hazardous mission, but all the while strengthening Waters' resolve to protect Lena and the refugees, and to deliver them safely across the border.

Avery has finally gotten his life back on track. A competitive swimmer, he had to drop out of college to support his girlfriend, Krista, and their son, Jordan. He's back on the swim meet circuit, and starting to have some success. When he's approached by a college scout after winning his latest race, he goes out to celebrate with his friends, Cashmere and Dre. In an instant, Avery's luck is about to run out...

This movie is an anthology of four gay-themed short films that have been recent hits on the film festival circuit: "Bumping Heads"; "L.T.R."; "O' Beautiful"; and "This Car Up". "Bumping Heads" is the story of two gay men trying to figure out if they want to become boyfriends who find themselves working through issues one night at a hospital emergency room. "L.T.R." is the story of a young gay couple in a "long-term relationship" who allow a documentary film crew to follow them around. "O Beautiful" shows what happens after a gay bashing in a corn field, when one of the attackers returns to reveal a secret, and express remorse for what he did. "This Car Up" uses a split-screen to follow the synchronized lives of two lovers.

New York City music executive Harry Langer (Jack Nicholson) is a man of some age and experience who generally dates younger women. His world is turned upside-down, however, when he has a heart attack while visiting the East Hampton beach home of the divorced playwright mother, Erica (Diane Keaton), of his latest trophy girlfriend, Marin (Amanda Peet). With his girlfriend having gone back to the city, Harry is left in the care of Erica and his doctor (Keanu Reeves), but the two men soon find themselves competing with each other, as they both fall in love with the same woman... the mom.

A virus that locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage, is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of survivors are trapped in London, caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. As they attempt to salvage a future from the apocalypse, they find that their most deadly enemy is not the virus, but other survivors.

When Travis (Seann William Scott), the son of an underworld kingpin, disappears in the Amazon in search of a priceless artifact, Beck (The Rock), the kingpin's retrieval expert, is sent to get him. Despite their hostility - and their love for the same woman (Rosario Dawson) - the two must eventually join forces to fight the evil head (Christopher Walken) of a gold-mining corporation who is after the same treasure.

"Piglet's Big Movie" brings "the little pink guy" to center stage for a story of friendship and appreciation as the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood learns that it doesn't take somebody big to do big things. Piglet gets that inferior feeling when his friends begin a "honey harvest" and he is told that he's too small to help. When Piglet disappears, his pals Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, and (of course) Winnie-the-Pooh use his scrapbook as a map to find him - and in the process discover that this "Very Small Animal" has been a big hero in a lot of ways. After an eventful search and a dramatic climax, Piglet once again demonstrates how large an influence he has been on his pals.

Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) discovers that an unknown force has caused the earth's inner core to stop rotating. With the planet's magnetic field rapidly deteriorating, our atmosphere literally starts to come apart at the seams with catastrophic consequences. To resolve the crisis, Keyes, along with a team of the world's most gifted scientists, travel into the earth's core in a subterranean craft piloted by "terranauts," Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs (Hilary Swank) and Colonel Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood). Their mission: detonate a device that will reactivate the core.

The comedy spoof series that knows no fear is at it again with its funniest installment yet. Taking shots at the latest crop of block-busters, "Scary Movie 3" irreverently roasts "The Ring", "Signs", "Matrix Reloaded", "The Hulk", "8 Mile", "The Others "and more, as well as pop culture trends such as "American Idol". The film brings director David Zucker back to the genre he helped create with the classics "Airplane!", "Naked Gun" and "Naked Gun 2 1/2". The cast of "Scary Movie 3" includes Charlie Sheen as the aliens-attracting farmer Tom and Denise Richards as his hapless wife Annie; Eddie Griffin as the prophetic Orpheus and Queen Latifah as his very un-Matrixy wife Laquisha; Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy as Catholic School Girls; Leslie Nielsen as the President of The United States; Simon Rex as rap-star wannabe George; Jeremy Piven as reporter Ross Giggins; Camryn Manheim as the formidable Trooper Champlin; Anna Faris as eager anchorwoman Cindy Campbell; Regina Hall as eerie school teacher Brenda Meeks; William Forsythe as The Glench; Anthony Anderson as rap promoter Mahalik; as well as George Carlin. Fat Joe, Simon Cowell, Method Man, Redman, Macy Gray, Master P., Ja Rule, D.L. Hughley, Wu Tang Clan and The Coors Twins.

Based on the best-selling novel by Susanna Moore, "In the Cut" is a psychological thriller starring Meg Ryan and directed by Jane Campion. Ryan plays a lonely New York woman who discovers the darker side of passion after becoming involved with a tough homicide detective, who is investigating a series of murders in her neighborhood.

The third installment in Robert Rodriguez's trilogy that began with 1992's "El Mariachi" and continued with 1995's "Desperado", the latter of which also starred Antonio Banderas. El Mariachi makes his way across a rugged landscape on the blood trail of Barrillo (Willem Dafoe), a cartel kingpin with one last score to settle who is planning a coup d'etat against the president of Mexico. Enlisted by Sands (Johnny Depp), a corrupt CIA agent, El Mariachi demands retribution, and the adventure begins against a backdrop of revolution, greed, and revenge.

The story follows Jerry (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a jilted guy left by his fiancee (Vivica A. Fox), deciding a vacation is in order after his best friend Nick (Horatio Sanz) sells him on the idea of a singles cruise packed with available gorgeous women. However, once out to sea, Jerry and Nick quickly realize they've mistakenly ended up on a cruise of a different kind.

Set in Toronto, a romantic tale which revolves around Rahul Seth, a Westernized, young dot.com millionaire, and his unconventional relationship with the beautiful and wild Sue Singh. Rahul is devastated after the untimely death of his beautiful, pop artist, blonde girlfriend Kimberly. To make matters worse, he is under extreme pressure from his family to get engaged to a good Hindu girl before his sister's upcoming wedding. Lest one forgets, according to the popular Hindu adage, 'the best cure for a broken heart is marriage'. Desperate, he hires the services of the gorgeous Sue, a local escort girl, to pretend to be his fiancée during the ten days of celebration, leading up to his sister's marriage ceremony. While Rahul is the scion of a typically successful NRI family, Sue is the daughter of a humble car mechanic and--professionally speaking--is one of the highest paid escorts in Toronto. They enter into the relationship as opposites. However, during this fateful period of much song, dance and merriment, Rahul and Sue's relationship slowly transcends that of employer and employee. With her passion for life, Sue manages to break through Rahul's hardened exterior to reveal a sensitive man who is not as emotionally dead as he would like to believe. In turn, Rahul's strong personality and advice enables Sue to see her parents in a more positive light.

Dr. Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Anna (Lindsay Lohan), are not getting along. They don't see eye-to-eye on clothes, hair, music, and certainly not in each other's taste in men. One Thursday evening, their disagreements reach a fever pitch - Anna is incensed that her mother doesn't support her musical aspirations and Tess, a widow about to remarry, can't see why Anna won't give her fiance (Mark Harmon) a break. Everything soon changes when two identical Fortune Cookies cause a little mystic mayhem.

Hell-raising guitarist with delusions of grandeur Dewey Finn (Jack Black) has been kicked out of his band. Desperate for work, he impersonates a substitute teacher and turns a class of fifth grade high-achievers into high-voltage rock and rollers ready to compete in a local radio station's Battle of the Bands contest.