April 2004 Movies

The exquisitely beautiful and very human drama "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring", from director Kim Ki-Duk, is entirely set on and around a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking landscape. The film is divided into five segments with each season representing a stage in a man's life. Under the vigilant eyes of Old Monk, Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel. In the intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man, experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead him, as an adult, to dark deeds. With winter, strikingly set on the ice and snow-covered lake, the man atones for his past actions, and spring starts the cycle anew...

A family farm inhabited by a widow (Sarah Jessica Parker), her young daughter, and various and sundry farm animals. The widow owes $1,000 mortgage on the farm and has no way to pay for it, and the cows get wind of the trouble. Fearing that they'll be sold to the local meat- packing plant, the cows seek to find a way to earn the money. Enter the family horse, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. He used to belong to a bounty hunter, and knows a great way to save the farm. You see, he's heard that in the nearby town, there's a bandit afoot (Randy Quaid), with a $1,000 bounty on his head.

From visionary writer/director Guillermo Del Toro ("Blade II", "The Devil's Backbone") comes "Hellboy", a supernatural action adventure based on Mike Mignola's popular Dark Horse Comics series of the same name. Born in the flames of hell, and brought to our world in a pagan ritual, the fierce red hero, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), was saved by his friend and mentor, the benevolent Dr. Broom (John Hurt). Raised in Broom's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy joins the likes of the "Mer-Man" Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), the woman he loves who can psychically control fire, and Myers, the FBI agent who is his rival for Liz's affections. Together, our heroes must come to terms with fantastic powers that prove to be both a blessing and a curse. In the process they discover that their abilities serve to benefit mankind but may also keep them forever isolated from the society that only they can protect.

This is the story of a sensitive teenager, Leland (Ryan Gosling), faced with issues of morality and hope under difficult circumstances, who is arrested and sent to juvenile hall, after he kills an autistic child out of sympathy. Once there, he meets a teacher, Mr. Pearl (Don Cheadle), who helps him figure out the reasons for why he committed the crime, as we also see the ramifications of the murder have on his community, his family, and that of the victim.

Even the onboard navigation system has a meltdown on Nate Johnson (Cedric The Entertainer) and his family's cross-country trek to their annual family reunion/grudge match. Reluctantly along for the ride are Nate's wife (Vanessa Williams), who's only in it for the kids; their rapper-wannabe son (Bow Wow); their teenage daughter (Solange Knowles) who's fashioned herself as the next Lolita; and their youngest (Gabby Soleil), whose imaginary dog Nate just can't seem to keep track of. Can the Johnsons survive each other and all the obstacles the road throws at them to make it to Caruthersville, Missouri? Can they find Missouri?

Set in the world of high-stakes poker hustlers, this is the story of three conmen/hustlers (Gabriel Byrne, Stuart Townsend, Thandie Newton) looking for that one big take that they can all retire on. After they actually do pull a huge sting off with the help of someone called "The Dean" (Sylvester Stallone), they find themselves chased by a ripped-off gangster looking for revenge...

In "Walking Tall", Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Chris Vaughn, a retired soldier who returns to his hometown to make a new life for himself, only to discover his wealthy high school rival, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), has closed the once-prosperous lumber mill and turned the town's resources towards his own criminal gains. The place Chris grew up is now overrun with crime, drugs, and violence. Enlisting the help of his old pal Ray Templeton (Johnny Knoxville), Chris gets elected sheriff and vows to shut down Hamilton's operations. His actions endanger his family and threaten his own life, but Chris refuses to back down until his hometown once again feels like home.

Eighteen-year-old Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is a straight-arrow over-achiever who has never really lived life, until he falls for his new neighbor, the beautiful and seemingly innocent Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert). When Matthew discovers this perfect "girl next door" is a one-time porn star, his sheltered existence begins to spin out of control. Ultimately, Danielle helps Matthew emerge from his shell and discover that sometimes you have to risk everything for the person you love - as he helps her rediscover her innocence.

The roads cross at San Antonio de Bexar at a small, ruined mission called The Alamo—a place where myth meets history and legend meets reality. In the spring of 1836 nearly 200 Texans—men of all races who believed in the future of Texas—held the fort for thirteen days under siege by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, ruler of Mexico and commander of its forces. Led by three men—the young, brash Colonel William Travis; the violent, passionate James Bowie; and the larger-than-life living legend Davy Crockett—the Texans and their deeds at the Alamo would pass into history as General Sam Houston's rallying cry for Texas independence. As well, their actions would become legend for their symbolic significance.

Ella (Anne Hathaway of "The Princess Diariess" fame) lives in a fanciful and magical world where all children are given a "gift" from a fairy Godmother at the moment of their birth. Little Ella's birthright is the gift - and curse - of obedience. As a result of this unfortunate circumstance, Ella cannot refuse any command, and is often left at the mercy of unscrupulous personalities. In a bid to regain control of her life, Ella goes on a quest to free herself from this mysterious curse. Ella must outwit a kingdom filled with ogres, giants, wicked stepsisters, talking books and evil plots. And, if she's lucky, she may find love along the way.

Retired hitman Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) is living the quiet life in a beachfront bungalow in Mexico, miles away from his former life. Thanks to falsified dental records supplied by onetime neighbor and friend Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky, D.D.S. (Matthew Perry), Jimmy faked his own death and has taken up a new line of work befitting his newfound domestic tranquility: cleaning the house and perfecting his culinary skills with his wife Jill (Amanda Peet), a purported novice assassin who has yet to pull off a clean hit. Suddenly, an uninvited and most unwelcome connection to their past shows up on the Tudeskis' doorstep. It's Oz, breathless and desperate, begging them to help rescue his wife, Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), from the Hungarian mob. Jimmy couldn't be less interested. It's not his problem anymore. But before he can toss Oz out on his ear, more unexpected visitors show up. Newly paroled mob boss Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollak) and his dim-bulb goons have followed the naïve dentist down from L.A. and right into Jimmy's Baja hideaway. All that Lazlo has been thinking about in jail is how he's going to get even with Jimmy for knocking off his favorite son, and how's he's going to fix Oz for helping him get away with it. Now Jimmy, Oz and Jill will have to go the whole nine yards — and then some — to manage the mounting Mafioso mayhem, in this sequel to the 2000 hit comedy "The Whole Nine Yards".

A young photographer (David Wissack) from Los Angeles takes his girlfriend (Katerina Golubeva) with him while looking for locations in the Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California for a photography shoot, where they find their lives changed by something horrible that happens in the desert...

Something sinister is lurking under the surface of 10-year-old Michele's (Giuseppe Cristiano) idyllic summer in 1978. While the days in his remote sourthern Italian village are filled with the familiar routines of childhood, a chance discovery leads to a shocking revelation. Now, suddenly beyond the point-of-no-return, Michele digs further to find that even his own parents may be behind what's quickly becoming the country's most nefarious crime.

"Young Adam" is David McKenzie's adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's novel, a romantic murder mystery set on a barge in the canals of Scotland. Lovely photography by Giles Nuttgens, complemented by a lonely score by David Byrne, provides a picturesque backdrop for what is otherwise a seedy story of morality gone far astray and hopelessness taking hold of everyday life, with sex as the only outlet. Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton both lend excellent performances to the film, acting out a strained relationship of carnal misgiving that is their mutual respite. Working on a barge that travels to ports between Glasgow and Edinburgh, Joe (McGregor) is a randy ol' chap. He befriends Les (Peter Mullen) as they labor hard days shoveling coal and pass their evenings over pints and darts in the local pubs. But Joe is simply positioning himself to seduce Les' wife, Ella (Swinton), who he easily and frequently beds. A steamy affair with a heavy dose of on-screen coitus eventually leads to trouble for all three. A subplot concerns Joe's past romance with a girl (Emily Mortimer) whose mysterious death is reported in local papers, with flashbacks to raunchy sexual interludes representing his fondest memories of her.

A look at the resurgence of Jewish Culture in Poland, particularly Krakow, an ironic location, as this part of Europe is also one of the epicenters of the Holocaust.

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) is a man who has seen too much death in his life, first as a Delta Force Op and later as an FBI special agent. He has managed to beat considerable odds, and is finally moving out of the field and into a normal life with his wife and son. On his final assignment, Castle plays his undercover role perfectly, but the operation spins out of control. This places the FBI on the wrong side of Tampa businessman Howard Saint (John Travolta) and his glamorous wife Livia (Laura Harring). Notwithstanding their glossy social profile, the Saints are no genteel Florida couple; behind their copious wealth are violent beginnings, underworld ties – and a chilling capacity for brutality. Castle's worst nightmare is about to come true, as Howard Saint and his lieutenants unleash hell at the Castle family reunion. But Castle, to his everlasting torment, survives. Drawing upon all he has learned in 20 years, Castle sets in motion a brilliant plan to punish the murderers. He takes up residence among in a dilapidated tenement building on Tampa's industrial waterfront, where his fellow tenants include Joan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), a waitress at a nearby diner who is trying to put her life back on track. Castle's neighbors become his last link to the idea of human community and warmth. It is this makeshift family – forgotten men and women with no one to protect them - who enable Castle to find the one thing he least expects: redemption.

Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette play Connie and Carla, two struggling Chicago dinner theater performers who accidentally witness a mafia hit... and who subsequently hit the road, running for their lives. Assuming the killers will never look for them in a place devoid of culture, the pair head to Los Angeles, where they assume new identities and find their middling talent at song and dance perfectly suited to new careers-as drag queens. Much to their surprise, they inadvertently become the toast of the cabaret circuit. As their ruse becomes increasingly difficult to maintain, they discover that it is indeed lonely at the top, especially after Connie meets Jeff (David Duchovny), a guy she'd really like to be a real girl with. With the mafia zeroing in and the line separating their onstage/offstage personas blurring beyond the point of recognition, Connie and Carla soon discover the power of not compromising to pursue your dreams, fighting the good fight, and never, never underestimating the transformative power of cosmetics.

Five days shy of her 13th birthday, all Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) wants is a new life. After a humiliating experience at school, Jenna makes a desperate wish ... that comes true. She's popular, successful and only five days away from her 30th birthday.

Chep, a reclusive young man, gets comfort from the movies and his vivid imagination. When Fran walks into the prop house where he lives looking for unusual objects, Chep immediately develops a crush. Obsessed with her job, for which she designs movie sets, Fran insists that each prop be the real thing, even if it happens to be a pair of rhinoceros eyes or a human finger. Chep's growing love for Fran makes him willing to prowl the dark streets at night in search of items for her. As Fran's requests become more peculiar, Chep is thrown into increasingly bizarre situations. His life quickly spirals out of control. As the strange thefts escalate, Detective Phil Barbara is assigned to the case and is soon on Chep and Fran's trail.

Set in London, this is the story of Dr. Adrian Strother (Goran Visnjic), an American insomniac hypnotherapist with telepathic powers, who gets caught up in the pursuit of a ritualistic serial killer, when Scotland Yard enlists his help in talking to a young mute girl who escaped.

Denzel Washington stars as a government operative/soldier of fortune who has pretty much given up on life. In Mexico City, he reluctantly agrees to take a job to protect a child (Dakota Fanning) whose parents are threatened by a wave of kidnappings. He eventually becomes close to the child and their relationship reawakens and rekindles his spirit. When she is abducted, his fiery rage is unleashed on those he feels responsible, and he stops at nothing to save her.

Duncan (Emile Hirsch) falls into odd behavior after his mother's death. His father can't quite understand why Duncan acts the way he does, dressing up in his mother's clothes and playing with a pet chicken. A local kid named Perry forms a bond with Duncan after initially picking on him.

The story of Haitian national hero Jean Dominique, "The Agronomist" represents a labor of love for the director Jonathan Demme, who first met and filmed the late journalist and freedom fighter in 1987. As owner and operator of his nation's only free radio station, Radio Haiti Inter, Dominique was frequently at odds with his country's various repressive governments and spent much of the 90's in exile in New York, where Demme continued to film him over the years. Following the successful reinstatement of Haiti's democratically elected government, Demee also filmed Dominique's triumphant return to Port Au Prince. But, it was Dominique's still-unsolved assassination in April of 2000, that gave the director the impetus to assemble more than a decade's worth of original and archival material into a celebration of the man and his legacy.

In "Mean Girls", Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is raised in the African wilderness by her zoologist parents but finds life gets a lot rougher when she moves to the city and begins high school. After dating the ex-boyfriend of the school's most popular girl, forces align against her.

Ben Stiller and Jack Black star as Tim and Nick, best friends, neighbors and co-workers, whose equal footing is suddenly tripped up when one of Nick's harebrained get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds: Vapoorizer, a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind for that matter, evaporate into thin air -- to where exactly is anyone's guess. Tim, who had scoffed at Nick's idea and passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick's fortune -- and Tim's own envy -- grow to equally outrageous proportions. When the flames of jealousy are fanned by an oddball drifter (Christopher Walken) who imposes himself into the situation, Tim's life careens wildly out of control ... taking Nick's with it.

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?

For some athletes, the ultimate win comes through a stroke of luck, but for Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., Bobby Jones, the only golfer in history to win the prestigious Grand Slam all in the same year—it was truly a stroke of genius. Having overcome an early childhood illness, he would later leave an indelible print in sports history. In 1930, at the age of 28, Jones won the title of Grand Slam Champion by winning the British Amateur, the British Open, the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur. His record remains unbroken today. Even then, Jones was still able to complete two college degrees and graduate from law school. Eventually torn between his family and the game he loved, Jones retired early to spend time with his wife and children. However, his contributions to golfing continued, as Jones went on to found the acclaimed Augusta National Golf Club and the annual professional and amateur tournament—The Masters. The biopic, itself, is not only a story about the amazing feats Bobby Jones accomplished on the golf course, but also, the way he lived his life off the course. Bobby Jones became a true American hero, not because he played for money or fame, but rather for the love of the game. Bobby Jones, whose natural skill and uncanny passion for the game earned him the title the best golfer in the world, will always be remembered as a true gentleman and gracious sportsman.

Following the death of their eight year old son on his birthday, Jessie (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Paul (Greg Kinnear) are befriended by a doctor on the forefront of genetic research (Robert DeNiro) at the height of their mourning. He leads the couple in a desperate attempt to reverse the rules of nature and clone their son. The experiment is successful and under Richard's watchful eye, Adam grows into a healthy and happy young boy, until his 8th birthday. As time goes by, the Duncan's gradually start to see small, subtle differences between the new Adam and the Adam they lost. At the time of the new Adam's eighth birthday, the changes in character are more pronounced. Adam grows distant and fearful as a palpable sense of menace settles within the young boy. This Adam begins to suffer from night terrors and frightening flashbacks as a sinister personality begins to emerge. Paul and Jessie cannot escape the fact that this Adam is different. Terror settles on the couple as they try to come to terms with just what they have done, or what has been done to them.

A father-son drama about a recently widowed man who cheats on his IRS report and goes on the run with his 12-year-old son, Mickey. Mickey, being a very talented baseball player, ends up playing for the Little League World Series, which threatens to blow his and his father's cover in the national spotlight.