2008 Least Anticipated Movies (Page #11)

Philip Seymour Hoffman will play a theater director who ambitiously attempts to put on a play by creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse. Catherine Keener is set to play his first wife, Michelle Williams will play his second wife, Samantha Morton will appear as his sometime lover, and Tilda Swinton will portray Keener's best friend and the dubious mentor to the daughter of Hoffman and Keener's characters.

Successful and single businesswoman Kate Holbrook has long put her career ahead of a personal life. Now 37, she's finally determined to have a kid on her own. But her plan is thrown a curve ball after she discovers she has only a million-to-one chance of getting pregnant. Undaunted, the driven Kate allows South Philly working girl Angie Ostrowiski to become her unlikely surrogate. Simple enough. After learning from the steely head of their surrogacy center that Angie is pregnant, Kate goes into precision nesting mode: reading childcare books, baby-proofing the apartment and researching top pre-schools. But the executive's well-organized strategy is turned upside down when her Baby Mama shows up at her doorstep with no place to live. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object as structured Kate tries to turn vibrant Angie into the perfect expectant mom. In a comic battle of wills, they will struggle their way through preparation for the baby's arrival. And in the mid dle of this tug-of-war, they'll discover two kinds of family: the one you're born to and the one you make.

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life.

Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) is a lonely man. Having lost his wife, as well as his passion for teaching and writing, he’s merely going through the motions. He fills his empty days by trying (unsuccessfully) to play classical piano. When the college where he teaches sends him to attend a conference in Manhattan, Walter returns to the apartment he once shared with his wife … and is startled to discover that a young couple is living there!

Victims of a real-estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman, “Veronica Mars,” “24”), a Syrian man, and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” the upcoming Ghost Town) have nowhere else to go. Reluctantly, Walter allows them to stay with him – and thus begins an amazing, emotional journey for all of them.

Touched by Walter’s generosity, Tarek, a talented musician in his own right, insists on teaching Walter to play the African drum. This shared love of music deepens their friendship, with the differences in culture, age and temperament falling away.

But when Tarek is arrested for being an undocumented resident and held for deportation, Walter is spurred into action, taking up his friend’s cause with a passion he thought was long gone. When Tarek’s beautiful mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass, The Nativity Story, Munich), arrives in search of her son, Walter’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely – and unexpected – romance.

The bilingual thriller is from writer-director Antonio Negret and focuses on the final 90 minutes in the life of a kidnapped Colombian. His family, a ransom delivery man, and a special ops team attempt to save him.

Two high school freshmen are targeted by the school bully on the first day of school. The boys hire what they think is a low-budget soldier of fortune to protect them, but he turns out to be anything but.

Anton Yelchin ("Alpha Dog") stars as Charlie Bartlett, who has been kicked out of every private school he ever attended. And now that he's moved on to public school, he's simply getting pummeled. But when Charlie discovers that the kids who surround him—the outcast and the popular alike—are secretly in desperate need, his entrepreneurial spirit takes over. Hanging up his shingle in the Boys' restroom, Charlie becomes an underground, not to mention under-aged, shrink who listens to the private confessions of his schoolmates, and makes the imprudent decision to hand out the pills he's proffered from his own psychiatric sessions. Meanwhile, at home, Charlie keeps charming his way out of an inevitable confrontation with his adoring but utterly overwhelmed mother Marilyn (Hope Davis.) Then, Charlie Bartlett makes his big mistake: falling in love with the beautiful and bold daughter (Kat Dennings) of the school's increasingly disenchanted Principal (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is hot on his trail. As Charlie Bartlett's world and fledgling psychiatric practice unravel, he begins to discover there's a whole lot more to making a difference than handing out pills.

a Wong Kar Wai's debut English language feature, the internationally acclaimed director takes his audience on a dramatic journey across the distance between heartbreak and a new beginning.

After a rough break-up, Elizabeth (played by songstress Norah Jones in her screen debut) sets out on a journey across America, leaving behind a life of memories, a dream and a soulful new friend – a café owner (Jude Law) – all while in search of something to mend her broken heart. Waitressing her way through the country, Elizabeth befriends others whose yearnings are greater than hers, including a troubled cop (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz) and a down-on-her luck gambler (Natalie Portman) with a score to settle.

Through these individuals, Elizabeth witnesses the true depths of loneliness and emptiness, and begins to understand that her own journey is part of a greater exploration within herself.

One year later, the Kings and Queens of Narnia find themselves back in that faraway wondrous realm, only to discover that more than 1,300 years have passed in Narnian time. During their absence, the Golden Age of Narnia has become extinct and Narnia has been conquered by the Telmarines and is now under the control of the evil King Miraz, who rules the land without mercy. The four children will soon meet a curious new character: Narnia''s rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian, who has been forced into hiding, as his uncle Miraz plots to kill him in order to place his own newborn son on the throne. With the help of the kindly dwarf, a courageous talking mouse named Reepicheep, a badger named Trufflehunter and a Black Dwarf, Nikabrik, the Narnians--led by the mighty knights Peter and Caspian--embark on a remarkable journey to find Aslan, rescue Narnia from Miraz''s tyrannical hold, and restore magic and glory to the land.

The story follows the tale of Vicky and Christina (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall), two Americans vacationing in the title's Spanish city, who become part of a chain of romances involving an artist (Javier Bardem) and his nutty ex-wife (Penelope Cruz).

"Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay" marks the triumphant return of these two hilarious, slacker anti-heroes. The movie stars John Cho as Harold and Kal Penn as Kumar, two stoners who can't seem to get a break. Their last adventure found them traveling across country to find a White Castle hamburger in order to satisfy a weed-induced case of "the munchies."

This time, the boys get themselves in trouble trying to sneak a bong onboard a flight to Amsterdam. Now, being suspected of terrorism, they are forced to run from the law and try to find a way to prove their innocence. What follows is an irreverent and epic journey of deep thoughts, deeper inhaling and a wild trip around the world that is as "un-PC" as it gets.

The story follows recently widowed Arvilla (Lange), who is accompanied by her best friends Margene (Spacek) and Carol (Bates) as she takes her husband Joe's vintage Bonneville and heads towards Santa Barbara to deliver Joe's ashes to his recentful daughter, Francine. En route, however, a series of offbeat adventures leads the women on a journey that will change their lives and show them there is more than one way to keep a promise.

Two ferociously ambitious sisters, Mary and Anne Boleyn, were rivals for the bed and heart of the 16th century English king Henry VIII. The elder, Mary, bore two bastard children by Henry, but she found herself usurped by her younger sister, whom Henry married (divorcing his first wife and causing a church schism in the process) and beheaded three years later for adultery.

The story centers on a compulsive organizer (Reynolds) who decides to live his life without planning and in the process discovers love with Mortimer's character. Townsend completes the love triangle playing Buddy, the best friend of Reynolds' character who also falls in love with Mortimer's character.

"Deal" revolves around an ex-gambler who teaches a hot-shot college student how to "play the player," vs. just the cards. But after the two have a bitter falling out, mentor and student find themselves competing against each other in the World Poker Tour championships.

A massive fireball from space hits New York's Central Park and an ordinary man emerges unscathed. The man turns out to be a spaceship operated by 100 human-looking aliens who are one-quarter inch tall and seeking a way to save their planet; complications ensue when their captain falls in love with an Earth woman who's always picked losers for previous romances.

The movie, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, is set in the years before World War Two, when Oxford student Charles Ryder gets entangled with the Marchmains, a seductive but troubled family of Anglo-Catholic aristocrats. Whishaw plays the alcoholic Sebastian, and Atwell his enigmatic sister Julia, between whom Charles (Goode) is caught in a forbidden love triangle. Gambon will play the dissolute patriarch Lord Marchmain, and Thompson his devout and controlling wife.

A pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua named Chloe finds herself accidentally lost in the mean streets of Mexico without a day spa or Rodeo Drive boutique anywhere in sight. Now alone for the first time in her spoiled life, she must rely on some unexpected new friends -- including a street-hardened German Shepherd named Delgado and an amorous pup named Papi -- to lend her a paw and help her to find her inner strength on their incredible journey back home.

In the comedy "Ghost Town," Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is a man whose people skills leave much to be desired. When Pincus dies unexpectedly, but is miraculously revived after seven minutes, he wakes up to discover that he now has the annoying ability to see ghosts. Even worse, they all want something from him, particularly Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), who pesters him into breaking up the impending marriage of his widow Gwen (Téa Leoni).

From the beloved best-selling series of books comes "The Spiderwick Chronicles," a fantasy adventure for the child in all of us. Peculiar things start to happen the moment the Grace family (Jared, his twin brother Simon, sister Mallory and their mom) leave New York and move into the secluded old house owned by their great, great uncle Arthur Spiderwick. Unable to explain the strange disappearances and accidents that seem to be happening on a daily basis, the family blames Jared. When he, Simon and Mallory investigate what's really going on, they uncover the fantastic truth of the Spiderwick estate and of the creatures that inhabit it.

In "88 Minutes", Al Pacino stars as Dr. Jack Gramm, a college professor who moonlights as a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI. When Gramm receives a death threat claiming he has only 88 minutes to live, he must use all his skills and training to narrow down the possible suspects, who include a disgruntled student, a jilted former lover, and a serial killer who is already on death row, before his time runs out.