February 2004 Movies

The crew is back in Barbershop 2: Back in Business, a sequel to the original comedy smash hit. Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Patrick Thomas, Eve, Troy Garity, Michael Ealy, and Leonard Earl Howze ý theyýre all still there in Calvinýs shop, this time with Queen Latifah joining the fun as Gina, a stylist at the beauty shop next door. Theyýre cutting hair, creating a sense of community, and having their signature Barbershop discussions ý outrageous, explosive, and hilarious. The world changes, but some things never go out of style ý you can still say anything you want at the barbershop.

As an homage to the ultra-low-budget, drive-in-friendly, science fiction movies of the 1950s and early 1960s, this is the unlikely story of a meteor shower that deposits an ore called "atmosphereum" in the hills outside Los Angeles in 1961, attracting the scientific interest of a heroic scientist who hopes to use the scientific value of the ore for his science project, and whose wife joins him on the expedition. What he soon finds out is that a pair of aliens are also after the atmosphereum as fuel for their space ship. Also in the area is an evil scientist exploring the mysterious Cadavra Cave, reportedly home to the legendary Lost Skeleton, who discovers he also needs the atmosphereum to revive the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra; and along the way, he uses the Marvan's transmutatron ray to meld four local animals into a beautiful mate for himself...

Kurt Russell stars as coach Herb Brooks in the story of how the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team toppled the seemingly invincible Soviet Union squad to capture the gold medal. A former U.S. player himself, Brooks was the last skater to be cut from the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, the most recent one to win the gold medal before Brooks became the team coach. He cobbled together a group of players and taught them to excel at the European game. Even so, the Russian team had won four consecutive gold medals and was so good that it defeated a team of National Hockey League all-stars. The U.S. team wasn't expected to even make the medal rounds. But led by Brooks, the team defeated the Soviet Union in the semifinal round, then bested Finland in the finals to win the gold.

Alain (François Morel) runs a small hi-tech engineering company; he is married to teacher Cecile, and they seem to be a blissfully happy couple. But Alain has come to the conclusion that he's terminally ill. A chronic worrier, he's convinced that some minor symptoms which he's experiencing are the beginning of the end. Alain decides not to tell his wife the bad news. So, on the night she holds a surprise birthday party for him, he goes to see his doctor, a family friend, and makes a lame excuse for this late return home that makes Cecile instantly suspicious. Cecile seeks help from Pascal, who agrees to follow Alain to see if he's meeting another woman. When he does, indeed, see him embrace a young woman (Raphaële Godin) in a city park, he thinks the mystery is solved; but the girl turns out to be Louise, the daughter of Alain and Cecile. Cecile then considers the possibility that Alain is having an affair with his secretary, Claire (Valérie Mairesse), but when Agnes asks her if she can borrow her chalet for a few days because she's met a man, Cecile immediately assumes that Agnes is her husband's secret mistress. But by this time Alain has come to the conclusion that Cecile is hiding something from him. The two begin to lie to each other and suspect one another as their paranoid delusions escalate.

Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in the spring of 1968 when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, "The Dreamers" is a story of self-discovery as the three students test each other to see just how far they will go. Left alone in Paris whilst their parents are on holiday, Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with their emotions and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games.

A 12-year-old Maddy (Kristen Stewart) and her father (Sam Robards) have always shared a love for mountain climbing. Their hobby, however, has a disastrous effect when an accident on Mount Everest injures his spine, paralyzing him forever unless he gets a very expensive operation. Determined to raise the money to pay for it, Maddy decides to recruit two of her friends to help her break into the super-high-tech bank that her mother (Jennifer Beals) works at as the security chief, in an attempt to rob the funds her father needs using the amazing climbing abilities he taught her...

Based on the story of Jackie Kallen, the first female boxing manager. Ryan will play Kallen, and Epps the pugilist whom she helps lead to glory. Kallen battled personal adversity to become a fight manager who, three years into the game, helped James Toney battle to the world middleweight championship.

Havana: November, 1958. 18-year-old Katey Miller (Romola Garai) brings an innate curiosity and a smattering of Spanish to her new life in Cuba's lush capital, where her father has taken an executive posting at Ford. Bookish and awkward, Katey is expected to join the smart set of American teenagers who are the Millers' neighbors at the exclusive Oceana Hotel. But Katey finds herself drawn instead to the proud, purposeful Javier (Diego Luna), a waiter who also happens to be brilliant dancer. Determined to learn the slinky, spectacular moves that Javier seems to know in his bones, Katey persuades him to partner with her in a prestigious national dance competition at Havana's glittering nightclub/casino, The Palace. Soon, the straight-A student is deceiving her parents, stealing away both day and night to discover a different part of Cuba with Javier. They meet at the steamy nightclub La Rosa Negra, where only the locals go and where the dancing is hotter than the temperature outside. Some days, they practice on the sand of an out-of-the way beach, aligning their bodies in a sensual harmony that mirrors the growing passion between them. As the night of the contest finally arrives, Katey and Javier are ready to take their place as a couple on the dance floor - unaware that the country club, and the streets of Havana itself, are about to erupt in revolutionary violence.

Winner of over 22 film festival awards, "Robot Stories" is science fiction from the heart, four stories in which utterly human characters struggle to connect in a world of robot babies and android office workers. The stories include: "My Robot Baby," in which a couple must care for a robot baby before adopting a human child; "The Robot Fixer," in which a mother tries to connect with her dying son by completing his toy robot collection; "Machine Love," in which an office worker android learns that he, too, needs love; and "Clay," in which an old sculptor must choose between natural death and digital immortality.

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.

Arctic marine life veterinarian Henry Roth has his future all mapped out. When he's not tending to the sea animals at Sea Life Park in Hawaii, he is breaking the hearts of mainland tourists in search of a vacation romance. A long-term relationship for Henry is out of the question. It would scuttle his 10-year dream of sailing to Alaska to study the underwater life of walruses. Henry is close to making his dream come true when his schooner, the Sea Serpent, suffers a mishap during a trial run, which lands him at the Hukilau Café where the regulars eye him with distrust when he sets his eyes on one of its patrons, the beautiful young Lucy Whitmore. Henry is immediately smitten with Lucy, and after a first chat with her about waffles and sea mammals, Henry finds himself more and more interested in Lucy. Ignoring his own rule about dating local girls, he makes a date to meet her for breakfast the next day. But when he arrives and makes a reference to their previous conversation, she thinks he's some kind of freak and calls for help. Lucy has no idea who he is. And Henry realizes that if he wants to win her affections, he's going to have to start over again every day for the rest of his life.

The unspoken code of the underworld: keep your mouth shut, protect your family and don't be a traitor. Dris, having spent the last four years in jail with his mouth shut, wants to get back to his quiet life with his beautiful wife. But the past is never far away, and his partner and best friend Yanis, who now runs the streets, wants nothing more than to bring Dris back into the family.

Cast your ballot for big laughs when Gene Hackman and Ray Romano find themselves in a hilariously heated race for mayor of Mooseport, Maine. A local plumber (Romano) is plunged into the national spotlight when he takes on the former President of the United States (Hackman), who can't believe he's running against the man installing his toilets! To make matters worse, the ex-prez is trying to steal the election—and the affection of the handyman's girlfriend (Maura Tierney). Whoever wins, one thing's for sure: this town isn't small enough for the both of them!

A dramatic tale of the moral dilemmas of a not-too-honest cop played out against a background of a manhunt. Pascal supplies his wife, Agnes, with morphine provided by Jaquillat, the local crime boss; Agnes was addicted even before the pair met. But the prison break-out of terrorist Bruno Le Roux, and the certainty that he's settling old scores in the Grenoble area, has made Jaquillat a worried man. He attempts to blackmail Pascal into killing Bruno on sight, using the supply of morphine as a lever. Pascal refuses to co-operate, but he can't tell Agnes why his supplies have suddenly dried up. As a result, she trawls the streets in search of a hit, which is where she meets, and is helped by, the fugitive. He takes her back to her place to tend to her injuries after a street dealer beats her up, and Pascal, coming home, sees them together; however, he doesn't make them aware of his presence, and deliberately lets the fugitive slip through his fingers.

During the early 1960s, Paris was an explosion of life. As the old gave way to the new, everything was in flux and the city was filled with an energy that promised cultural shifts and social change. Against this background, in a working class neighborhood, two unlikely characters--a young Jew and an elderly Muslim--begin a friendship. When we meet Moise, also known as Momo, he is in effect an orphan even tough he lives with prostitutes who treat him with genuine affection. Momo buys his groceries at the neighborhood shop, a crowded dark space owned and run by Ibrahim, a silent exotic looking man who sees and knows more than he lets on. After Momo is abandoned by his father, Ibrahim becomes the one grownup in Momo's life. Together they begin a journey that will change their lives forever.

When a New York City teenager from Greenwich Village, Lola (Lindsay Lohan), is forced to move to the New Jersery suburb of Dellwood, she finds that in her new school, there is another girl, Carla Santini (Megan Fox), who already has claim to the title of most popular girl that Lola had at her old school. Aiming to oust Carla from her reign, Lola sets her sights on nabbing the lead role in the next big school play ("Pygmalion"), which Carla also hopes to star in. As the two girls engage in a war for popularity, Carla lashes back at Lola by obtaining tickets to the sold-out "farewell concert" of Lola's favorite band. Can Lola somehow sneak into the concert and quell Carla's latest scheme, and at the same time meet the band's English lead singer, Stu Wolff (Adam Garcia), whom she has such a crush on?

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.

A murder and a suicide occur early one morning in a jewelry store. Behind this headline lies the story of a desperate man's feelings of humiliation in a world of social injustice... When his friend Ali shows him the contents of a lost purse, Hussein cannot imagine the large sum of money marked on a receipt for an expensive necklace. He knows that his pitiful salary will never be enough to afford such luxury. Hussein feels even lower on the social scale when a smooth-talking professional thief mistakes the two friends for petty crooks. Hussein receives yet another blow when he and Ali are denied entry to an uptown jewelry store because of their appearance. Hussein's job delivering pizzas allows him a full view of the contrast between rich and poor. He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. The hypocrisy of the system is thrown in his face wherever he turns. But Hussein will taste the luxurious life for one night before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge.

Scotty Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) and his Berlin-based computer pen pal Mieke (Jessica Boehrs) have been writing each other for years, sharing every detail of their lives. When Mieke makes a cyber pass at Scotty, he completely freaks out, thinking that this guy he's known for years is coming on to him…in German no less. Too bad the the one detail Scotty doesn't seem to know is that, in Germany, Mieke is a girl's name.By the time Scotty figures out that Mieke is a girl, and a hot one at that, Mieke has cut off her email account and all contact with him. Thinking that this might be his one chance at true love—even though he's never actually met the girl—Scotty and his best friends, Cooper (Jacob Pitts) and the twins Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Wester), embark on a raucous trip across Europe headed for Berlin.Their trek takes them from London to Paris to Amsterdam and Eastern Europe, exposing them—literally—to every lascivious, larcenous and lecherous indulgence Europe has to offer, in a comedy that gives new meaning to the phrase "foreign relations."

This film tells the story of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus (Jim Caviezel), on the day of his crucifixion in Jerusalem. This film's script is based upon several sources, including the diaries of St. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) as collected in the book, "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ", "The Mystical City of God" by St. Mary of Agreda, and the New Testament books of John, Luke, Mark and Matthew.

Is it true? Weddings are the perfect aphrodisiac? Get set for one riotous weekend where this nugget of "every-guy-knows" will be proven yet again. This weekend Jay, Dewey, and Phil become part of that most coveted fraternity; groomsmen. Dewey and Jay leverage a bet on the weekend; Jay must have a pure one night stand. No morning cuddles, sappy promises, no setting up house; just sleep with a girl and walk away. In return Dewey puts a hold on his life's work; for three days he promises to remain celibate, putting aside his personal quest of 20,000 women (Wilt Chamberlain's record). The stakes are a 1959 mint convertible Thunderbird and Jay's younger sister. From the rehearsal dinner to the bedrooms of the estate, there's no limit to how far the guys will go in this irreverent romp through the days leading up to that final walk down the isle.

In "Twisted", a police detective named Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) tracks a serial killer who murders the men she dates. When Jessica begins blacking out before each murder takes place, her partner, Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia), and the police commissioner (Samuel L. Jackson) target her as the prime suspect.

The Broken Lizard gang is back and surrounded by wanton women on a booze-soaked island resort; but a machete-wielding killer is loose on the island, turning this tropical bacchanal into "Club Lizard". The Staff (the Broken Lizard guys) must try to stop (or hide) the bloodshed before they lose all of their customers. Literally. Broken Lizard is a group of five comedy writer/actors.