December 2004 Movies

"Closer" explores the ever-changing state of modern relationships through a quartet of lovers tangled in a web of love, lust sex and betrayal. Based on Patrick Marber's hit play about sexual politics, which was nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Play" in 1999.

"House of Flying Daggers" is set in the year 859AD as China's once flourishing Tang Dynasty is in decline. Unrest is raging throughout the land, and the corrupt government is locked in battle with rebel armies that are forming in protest. The largest, and most prestigious of these is the "House of Flying Daggers", which is growing ever more powerful under a mysterious new leader. Two local captains, Leo (Lau) and Jin (Kaneshiro) are ordered to capture the new leader and the two hatch an elaborate plan. Captain Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind and rescue the beautiful, blind revolutionary Mei (Ziyi), from prison, earning her trust and escorting her to the secret headquarters of the House of Flying Daggers. The plan works, but to their surprise, Jin and Mei fall deeply in love on their long journey to the House. Danger lurks in the forest surrounding them, and the wind is still, as if sensing the tension in the air. What lies ahead for Jin and Mei, these star-crossed lovers? If this is true love, then why are there plots in their heads, and secrets in their hearts?

This is the story of a 12-year-old boy, David (Ben Tibber), who travels across Europe by himself in 1952 after escaping from the Communist concentration camp in Bulgaria where he's spent most of his life. Advised and helped by a fellow inmate, Johannes (James Caviezel), David makes his way out of the camp with only a loaf of bread, a compass to guide him and a letter he's been told to deliver to Copenhagen, Denmark. Not even knowing where Denmark is, David must first make his way from Bulgaria to Italy...

Deep in a remote desert, vampire leaders are resurrecting Dracula, the horrific creature who spawned their race. Now known as Drake, this awesome vampire has unique powers that allow him to exist in daylight. To make things even more difficult for Blade, the vampiric leadership launches a smear campaign against him, targeting him as a murderous monster and sending the FBI after him. After Blade and his mentor, Whistler, have an explosive showdown with FBI agent Cumberland and his men, it's evident that the Daywalker will need some assistance. Blade reluctantly teams up with the Nightstalkers, a group of human vampire hunters led by Whistler's beautiful daughter, Abigail, and the wisecracking Hannibal King. While their blind scientist Sommerfield works on creating a final solution for the vampire problem, the Nightstalkers launch a relentless series of battles against Dracula's gang of the undead, led by the powerful vampire Danica Talos and her fanged acolytes Asher and Grimwood. Ultimately, Blade finds himself taking on the greatest vampire of all time, as his own fate and that of humanity hang in the balance.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his crew, having successfully stolen $150 million Las Vegas casinos in the first film, jet to Europe with three new heists planned, including swiping Rembrandt's Nightwatch from a gallery in Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the casino mogul whose money Ocean and company made off with, and his hitmen are in hot pursuit.

For Bobby Darin, performing was his life. It kept his heart beating. He came alive onstage, even when he was near collapse offstage. From the age of seven, Walden Robert Cassotto—Little Bobby knows the odds are stacked against him. Rheumatic fever has permanently damaged his heart, and he's not expected to make it to age fifteen. Bobby's family pour all their energies into caring for him. Bobby's frail heart may be one truth, but his mother Polly, a former singer, introduces her boy to another wonderful truth: music. Music becomes Bobby's bargaining chip against time; he's not only singing, but also playing piano, drums and guitar before he even hits his teens. Music takes him into a world beyond the Bronx, and beyond sickness. It's a world of effortlessly swinging songs, and couples dancing to the lilt of Bobby's voice. Bobby has a plan, and no heart ailment will stop him.

Svend and Bjarne work for a butcher in a small Danish town. Fed up with their boss' arrogance, they decide to start their own butcher shop. After dismal beginnings, an unfortunate accident happens which coincides with a large order of meat. One hasty decision leads to another and soon the business thrives. In the meantime, Bjarne has to deal with his twin brother who has been in coma for years following a gruesome car accident.

A remake of the 1961 original that starred Jimmy Stewart, the story is about a group of men stranded in the Sahara Desert after their plane crashes. Desperate, the crew tries to rebuild the plane with any salvagable parts from the wreckage. The update will be setn the story of a group of men stranded in the Sahara Desert following a plane crash. With no way out, they try to build a plane using pieces from the wreckage. The updated version is described by Fox as a reinvention of the original and set in the Mongolian desert.

Inspired by a Korean legend, this is the odyssey of two sisters, who after spending time in a mental institution, return to the home of their father and cruel stepmother. Their recovery is affected by their stepmother's increasing cruelty, together with appearances of the ghost of their mother, which creates an atmosphere of strange occurrences and irrespirable fear.

Based on the bestselling book series by Daniel Handler, the "Snicket" saga revolves around a pint-sized trio of orphans named Sunny, Klaus and Violet who find themselves fobbed off on a series of odd people, including Lemony Snicket, who narrates each of what has grown to a series of eight books since Handler debuted the first title in 1999. The recurring bad guy is a distant family relative named Count Olaf, who initially takes in the kids but clearly is trying to separate them from a family inheritance.

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.

Based on the hit musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the tale tells the story of a disfigured musical genius who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, waging a reign of terror over its occupants. When he falls fatally in love with the lovely Christine, the Phantom devotes himself to creating a new star for the Opera--exerting a strange sense of control over the young soprano as he nurtures her extraordinary talents.

An innovative masterpiece that literally gives wings to one man's singular vision of an imaginary world. Henry Darger lived a reclusive life and died alone in a Catholic mission in 1973. For more than 60 years, he created a massive literary and graphic body of work, including The Realms of the Unreal, an epic, fifteen-thousand-page novel with hundreds of paintings that recounts the wars between nations on an enormous unnamed planet. Darger's keen sense of composition and vivid colors allowed him to create incredibly intense and beautiful illustrations which are often disturbingly violent. Consciously excluding art experts and psychologists, Yu presents impressions of Darger's work only from the people who knew him, letting the audience make up their own minds about the man. The film cleverly parallels his real life with his fantasies, making the oddness of his fantasy world more accessible.

Set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl and her relentless search to find her fiancée, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. All an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.

Now that Greg Focker is in with his soon-to-be in-laws, Jack and Dina Byrnes, it looks like smooth sailing for him and his fiancée, Pam. But that's before Pam's parents meet Greg's parents, Bernie and Roz Focker. The hyper-relaxed Fockers and the tightly-wound Byrneses are woefully mismatched from the start, and no matter how hard Greg and Pam try, there is just no bringing their families together.

Ten years ago, some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda; and in an era of high-speed communication and round-the-clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, almost 1 million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.

Walter, a convicted sex offender, is trying to put his life back together. He lands a steady job, he sees an earnest therapist, and he spends time with his sympathetic brother-in-law. Still, he cannot escape his past--his sister shuns him, and he lives in fear of being discovered. Walter finds unexpected comfort in Vicki, a tough-talking woman who doesn't judge him for his history, but even her love is not enough to keep the demons away. As he discovers, it is hard to resist old temptations.

Live-action version of the Saturday morning television cartoon (1972-85) following the misadventures of a group of adolescent boys growing up in a Philadelphia neighborhood, focusing on an obese boy named Albert and his friends Rudy, Mushmouth, Bill, Dumb Donald, Russell, and Weird Harold. Fat Albert pulls his pals into trouble when they fall out of their TV world into the real world, where Fat Albert tries to help a young girl, Doris, make friends. However, the simple life of the group is interrupted when Fat Albert falls for Doris' older sister, Lauri, sparking his friends to worry that their leader may never want to return to his cartoon world.

Three weeks ago, just before the lunar eclipse, American teenager Regina and her family moved into a charming old house in the remote Spanish countryside. Since then, nothing has been the same. Day by day, a strange force seems to be pulling the family apart and Regina is the only one brave enough to search for answers. However, she is about to discover the answers to all her questions lie deep within the walls of their new home: something has been waiting here for her family's arrival; something ancient and wicked; something looking for retribution; a force as bottomless and hungry as the dark itself. Now, darkness is closing in on Regina's family, and she's their only chance for survival.

"The Aviator" tells the story of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), the eccentric billionaire industrialist and Hollywood film mogul, famous for romancing some of the world's most beautiful women. The drama recounts the years of his life from the late 1920s though the 1940s, an epoch when Hughes was directing and producing Hollywood movies and test flying innovative aircraft he designed and created. A daredevil pilot, the most famous flyer since Charles Lindbergh, Hughes became a major force in commercial aviation. He was a mythic figure in the America of his day, imbued with an aura of excitement, glamour and mystery. "The Aviator" looks at Hughes' emotional life, and his love affairs with two Hollywood legends, elegant, Yankee-bred screen star Katharine Hepburn in the 1930s, and the sensual and luminous screen beauty of the 1940s, Ava Gardner. It also chronicles Hughes' struggle with his physical disabilities and phobias, and with his increasingly erratic, obsessive-compulsive behavior that leads him ultimately to isolate himself from his associates and withdraw from the world.

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.

Set in 16th century Venice, this adaptation of the Shakespeare play tells the story of Antonio, who goes into debt with moneylendor Shylock (Al Pacino) so his friend Bassanio can impress the object of his affection, Portia.

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.

Meticulously depicts the disintegration of Samuel Bicke (Sean Penn), a failed salesman and ineffectual would-be assassin. Unwillingly separated from his beautiful wife, Marie (Naomi Watts), Samuel is a meek and earnest everyman who grows increasingly embittered as mounting disappointment and rejection dash his dreams one by one. On the brink of a nervous collapse, he yearns for the success he sees in others, unable to understand why it cannot also be his. Inspired by real-life events, The Assassination of Richard Nixon tells the story of Samuel's breakdown and his subsequent attempt to assassinate the president – an endeavour which, like everything in his life, is inevitably doomed to failure. With the noise of Watergate providing a constant blaring background to the dissolution of his marriage and the loss of his job, Bicke loses his tenuous grip on reality. His desire to lash out at the government for his personal anguish drives him to conceal a gun under an orthopaedic leg brace. His intention: to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House.