February 2005 Movies

This is the true story of Tony Fingleton, a young man from a troubled family who found the inner strength to become a champion. Set in 1950s Brisbane, Australia, the family drama centers on Tony, a young man who beats the odds to become a champion swimmer in spite of his overbearing, alcoholic father and long-suffering, but quietly heroic mother. Overshadowed in his father's eyes by his brothers, it's only when Tony displays an extraordinary swimming talent that he feels he has a shot at wining his father's heart—and maybe even Olympic gold.

Kat Ellis is looking for the right man. NOW. The position comes with a few requirements: willingness to travel, keen social skills, good looks, suave demeanor, sharp mind—and a tux. The qualified candidate should also have the ability to make ex-boyfriends jealous, to turn heads whenever entering a room and to reduce any woman within eye-and earshot to a week-kneed, besotted admirer. Kat wouldn't be so urgently in need were in not for her spoiled half sister's wedding where the best man happens to be Kat's handsome ex-boyfriend. What's worse, the currently single Kat has to schlep all the way from New York to London, where her wildly dysfunctional family lives. And since the wedding is happening next week, Kat does what any enterprising single woman would do—she hires a professional. So what if her solution crosses a few morally dubious lines plus costs her a tidy six thousand bucks which she'll have to drain from her 401K? And so what if her escort happens to be—well, an escort? Lucky for her that her hiring skills are pitch-perfect and she zeroes in on smooth heart-stopper Nick Mercer, one of New York's better known and in-demand professional male escorts. Once in England, the insightful and charismatic Nick—part actor/part shrink/part bon vivant—helps Kat navigate the choppy waters of her screwy family and caddish old flame Jeffrey and convinces everyone he meets that he and Kate are an item. As Nick charms Kat's parents, Bunny and Victor Ellis, her self-absorbed half sister Amy, Amy's fiancée Edward, as well as every living, breathing woman within a 100-kilometer radius, Kat too finds herself feeling things she's never felt before. For Kat, what begins as merely a face-saving ruse with a dashing guy-for-hire quickly starts to become more than she ever expected.

A young man, emotionally traumatized by memories of terrible things he experienced in his bedroom as a little boy, decides to return to the house he grew up in after the tragic death of his father to try to face his fears of that bedroom; fears of a mysterious being that could merely be a figment of his imagination that the experience might help him work out. Unless, of course, the Boogeyman is real...

Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in. Michael is stunned to discover that fast talking Rory, who can move only his right hand, can understand his almost unintelligible speech. Rory's dynamic and rebellious nature soon sparks a flame in Michael, introducing him to a whole new world outside of Carrigmore.

Two angels, one good and one bad, are sent to Earth to compete for the very questionable soul of a boxer. The last 10 years have been nothing but tough times in Heaven, with Hell winning the battle between good and evil. So, when Heaven's managers finally have the opportunity to win the soul of a boxer and shift the balance of power, they send their best angel for the job. When Hell's Chief Executive gets wind of this, he counters by sending his most experienced operative to Earth. The battle between Heaven and Hell is on.

Story of German New Wave rock star Klaus Nomi, one of the most profoundly bizarre characters to rise to fame in the 80s. In his short but eventful life, fame, friendship, betrayal, opera, performance and, tragically, death converge.

Harry (Bryce Johnson), aged 23, is a former boy band idol who is watching his younger brother Max (Cole Williams), aged 16, follow in his footsteps. Harry escorts Max on a long-promised camping adventure to the San Gabriel mountains above Los Angeles but things quickly turn serious as the boys discuss Harry's contradictory relationship with their family. Max's longing to connect with Harry both physically and emotionally grows even more, wanting to bring stability to Harry's life. In an effort to create a type of alternative family for his brother, Max goads Harry to rekindle his affections for his former girlfriend, Nikki (Rain Phoenix). Back from the weekend, Max realizes that he must redefine his relationship with his brother, and that only by setting boundaries can the boys grow into adulthood together.

Will Smith plays a "date doctor" who claims to be able to find customers their perfect romantic match in three dates or less. Eva Mendes may star as a skeptical reporter who, while investigating Smith's dubious claim, finds herself falling for him. After a chance meeting with Hitch, Sara (Eva Mendes), a gossip reporter for a daily tabloid, finds her professional life and personal life on a collision course. She makes Hitch re-evaluate his game and teaches him that love is not a feeling, it's an action.

"Inside Deep Throat" examines the unanticipated lasting cultural impact generated by "Deep Throat", a sexually explicit film first shown in a midtown Manhattan adult theater in June 1972 that quickly became the flashpoint for an unprecedented social and political firestorm. Generally considered the most profitable film of all time (produced for less than $25,000), "Deep Throat" unexpectedly became a cultural phenomenon at the moment when the nation's movements of sexual liberation, equal rights and questioning authority demanded a combustible focus. The barely one-hour long adult title became compulsory viewing for millions of Americans. More than 30 years later, "Inside Deep Throat" examines the chasm between the modest intentions of the filmmakers behind "Deep Throat" and the unforeseen, ironic impact and legacy that their film left on society.

Awakened by a rumbling that could only be made by the much-feared Heffalump, the Hundred Acre Wood crew sets forth to catch the dreaded creature. Disregarded as too young to partake in such a dangerous expedition, Roo opts to search on his own – with far greater success than his friends. But in meeting a young, playful Heffalump named Lumpy, Roo quickly discovers that Heffalumps are nothing like what he's been told, and that the creature is equally afraid of Roo's silly pals. Roo and Lumpy strike up a sweet friendship and work together to dispel the unfounded fears of their respective friends and families.

The determined Mrs. Bakshi sets out to find marriage matches for her four beautiful daughters while there's a lavish wedding party in town. Right away, the smart and headstrong Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) announces she will only marry for love, giving her mother nightmares. Then Lalita meets the wealthy American Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) and sparks immediately fly. But is it love or hate? Darcy comes off to Lalita as an arrogant California snob. Lalita looks to Darcy like a small-town Indian beauty who knows nothing of the world. Alternately enchanted by and suspicious of one another, Lalita and Darcy nearly fall prey to assumptions, gossip and a comedy of errors . . . until pride is humbled and prejudice overcome so that love can triumph.

Ernesto is a successful artist who has his life turned upside down by his family's wishes for the canonization of his murdered mother. His extreme dislike for her ignorant ways brings about a greater connection to his inane brother who killed her, while his other brothers favor her beautification.

Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers. They have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note asking her 12-year-old boy to look after his younger siblings. And so begins the children's odyssey, a journey nobody knows. Despite their mother's abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules. But when they have no choice but to engage with the world outside the apartment, the fragile balance that has sustained them collapses. Kore-eda incorporated documentary techniques to makes this film extraordinarily intimate and unaffected. Filmed chronologically over a year, "Nobody Knows" captures the young amateur actors growing as their characters do, highlighting the details of the children's lives, whether the nuances of a manicure, a toy piano, squeaking sandals, a cup of instant noodles, or a box of chocolates, to evoke not only the distinctive world of these particular abandoned children, but the gentleness and beauty of every childhood.

One dark night, a former native of a rural Thai village, has his men steal the head of the town's Ong Bak (Buddha statue) to win favor with ruthless crime boss Khom Tuan. The locals regard the theft as a catastrophe, and seek a champion to retrieve their lost treasure. They find their man in Ting (Tony Jaa), an orphaned youngster raised at the local temple, and schooled by Pra Kru, a kindly monk, in an ancient system of Muay Thai: 'Nine Body Weapons'. Ting travels to the mean streets of Bangkok, where he's forced to compete in illegal street fights, taking on both local and foreign opponents to win the head of Ong Bak from the ruthless crime boss.

Try as he might, Cliff Starkey just can't keep out of trouble. With a dead- end career, there's not much that makes him want to get out of bed in the mornings… except his one passion: Lawn Bowls. Almost as soon as he learned how to walk, he displayed a genius for the sport. To the dismay of the elderly, uptight bowls fraternity in town, Cliff honed his mastery of the game alone, playing by no one's rules but his own. But the time has come for his skill to be recognized, and Rick Schwartz (Vince Vaughn), an American sports agent, is going to ensure that this ‘Bad Boy' of bowls gets the spotlight he deserves. Cliff's rock ‘n' roll attitude and army of screaming female fans soon take England by storm, but can he take on the stuffy, business-like attitude of the Bowls Association and his senior arch-rival, Ray Speight? Starkey is only one match away from super-stardom as he competes with Ray in a ball-busting championship showdown!

Schultze is an accordion player and newly unemployed. When the local music club celebrates its 50th anniversary, his taste of music changes unexpectedly.

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch, and Michelle Williams, "Imaginary Heroes" is a funny and poignant coming of age story in which the façade of an ordinary American family is peeled back to reveal that nothing is as it seems. Tim Travis (Hirsch) is walking through his life like it's a bad dream. His mother Sandy (Weaver) is the master of the Travis house - with a healthy drug habit, a decade long grudge, and a secret that is literally tearing her apart. His father Ben (Daniels) is a shell of the man he once was, crippled by circumstance and blind to the mistakes of his past. But in typical American style, the Travises aren't depressed - they're living their lives in a forlorn haze. As painful revelations are made that threaten to divide the family, moments of laughter and truth provide the salve that ultimately bring them closer together.

A successful community theatre company is turned upside down when the director of an upcoming production of "Cyrano" casts an inexperienced young man with no apparent talent in the lead. The young man, Peter Rooker (Marcus Thomas), soon becomes caught up in the various intrigues of the "theater people," including the charming but mercurial Michael (John Corbett), the beautiful leading lady Grace (Amy Smart), and a colorful cast of eccentric players (including Sean Astin, Patty Duke and Alan Corduner). Peter soon discovers that in the world of theater the normal rules do not apply–but in the end there is a role for everyone.

Set in Ghobadi's native Kurdistan, close to the Turkey-Iran border, 13-year-old Soran orders other children around as he installs an antennae for villagers keen to hear of Saddam's fall. Eventually, he falls for Agrin but is disturbed by her brother Henkov, who was left armless after he stepped on a landmine and who can now seemingly predict the future.

In the future, after the human civilization ended by war and pollution, only those few people who had the power and technology escaped the disaster. Those people built the last human city of Ecoban. As its energy source is the pollutant, the people of Ecoban plan to destroy the inhabitants of Marr to get more pollutant. Standing against Ecoban is a young man who wants only to clear the skies of the clouds to show the wonderful heavens to the girl he loves.

Opal, a 10-year-old girl and the only daughter of a an emotionally distant preacher, is a lonely outsider looking for friends. Opal comes upon a mutt-like dog at the Winn-Dixie supermarket, and it's love at first sight. Together, the two open hearts and make friends wherever they travel. Now, Opal must open the heart of her father to learn about the mother who left her when she was only three-years-old. Opal learns that life is made up of love and loss—and that one can sometimes compensate for the other.

Traudl Junge (Lara), the final stenographer for Adolf Hitler (Ganz), tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

John Constantine has been to hell and back. Born with a gift he didn't want, the ability to recognize the half-breed angels and demons that walk the earth in human camouflage, Constantine (Keanu Reeves) was driven to take his own life to escape the tormenting clarity of his vision. But he failed. Resuscitated against his will, he found himself cast back into the land of the living. Now, marked as an attempted suicide with a temporary lease on life, he patrols the earthly border between heaven and hell, hoping in vain to earn his way to salvation by waging war on the earthbound minions of evil. But Constantine is no saint. Increasingly disillusioned by the world around him and at odds with the one beyond, he's a hard-drinking, hard-living bitter hero who scorns the very idea of heroism. Constantine will fight to save your soul but he doesn't want your admiration or your thanks—and certainly not your sympathy. All he wants is a way out. When a desperate but skeptical police detective (Rachel Weisz as Angela Dodson) enlists his help in solving the mysterious death of her beloved twin sister, their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles. Caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldy events, the two become inextricably involved and seek to find their own peace at whatever cost.

Starting over from scratch, this newest film in "The Mask" series focuses on aspiring cartoonist Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy) who's feeling reluctant to become a father when he finds that he has to take care of a baby with amazing abilities... somehow, the baby has the powers of the Mask of Loki, a mythological object that transforms its user into a manic shapeshifter alter-ego.

Steven's birthday promises to be a particularly happy day, because he has finally gotten his much-sought-after promotion. Steven sets off on his homeward journey bearing the good news. He drives out to the suburb where he lives, looking forward to the party Alexandra, his wife, is sure to have organized for him. However, when he gets home, the house is strangely quiet. After searching the darkened rooms in vain for party guests, Steven finally comes across a video tape with the words play me written on it. It's a tape of Alexandra with a gun pointed at her head. Steve grabs the phone in panic, but the line is dead. He tries to leave for help, but now his keys no longer fit the lock and the security system has locked him indoors. Now alone, and a prisoner in his own house, he has no choice other than to watch the tape to the end.

It is a moonlit night in Los Angeles, when something lurking in the shadows causes their car to suddenly swerve off the road, a teenaged brother and his career-driven sister emerge relatively unscathed, but forever changed by the accident. Suddenly, the siblings find themselves blessed with increased physical strength, heightened sensibilities and undeniable allure to everyone around them. But, what if what happened to them that night wasn't just an accident and what seemed like fate was really something more? It is only a matter of time before Ellie (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) can no longer control these impulses because their newfound power comes with a price that they never expected to pay and a mystery that only they can solve.

In the dead of the night, near the Czech-Slovak border, two smugglers discover their truckload of illegal Indian immigrants have left a baby behind. In a small Prague apartment, Franta (Jiri Machacek) and Mila (Natasa Burger) dream of having a child, but Franta—on probation because of his soccer hooliganism past—is not allowed to adopt, and Mila is unable to conceive. After cashing in on her savings, Mila decides to buy a baby from a pawnshop that fronts a den of thieves and pickpockets. Meanwhile, an unusual family reunion is taking place: Academy professor Otto (Jan Triska) collapses while teaching, prompting his estranged son Martin (Petr Forman, son of director Milos) to return to Prague from Australia to see his father and his mother, Vera (Emilia Vasaryova), long separated from Otto whom she still pines for. Otto is now living with the beautiful and much younger Hana (Ingrid Timkova), who works in a refugee aid center helping immigrants to adjust to their new lives.

Tommy Lee Jones stars as a veteran FBI agent assigned to watch over a group of cheerleaders in the action/comedy "Man of the House". The collegiate cheeleaders witnessed a murder after a competition. The agent must investigate the murder, learn to deal with the energetic, yet dysfunctional bunch, while protecting them from the killers. Brian Van Holt plays an FBI agent, and Shea Whigham another Texas Ranger. Paget Brewster has been cast as Binky, the enthusiastic cheerleading coach.

The story focuses on Helen McCarter (Kimberly Elise), who has seemingly had the perfect life with husband Charles McCarter (Steve Harris). Over the years, Helen has been a faithful and loving wife, while Charles built a successful and lucrative career as a prominent Atlanta attorney. They wear the latest fashions, drive the nicest cars, have all the possessions they need, and they live on an expansive estate complete with an extravagant mansion, swimming pool, tennis court and all the trappings of wealth—a little piece of paradise away from the city. However, on the eve of their 18th wedding anniversary, Helen's paradise begins to crumble as Charles announces that he wants a divorce. He abruptly and literally tosses Helen out of the mansion to make room for the other woman. With all of her possessions packed in a moving van, Helen starts on her journey to put the pieces of her life back together. Through the assistance of her friends, family, faith, and a twist of fate, Helen finds the strength and empowerment she needs to get control of her circumstances. She also finds that the tragic events of her life soon become comic, especially with the guidance and help—mostly unsolicited, by the way—of her pot-smoking, gun-toting, and much beloved, grandmother figure Madea (Tyler Perry).