The second and last of Anthony Mann's historical epics is a smart, handsome spectacle of the decadence, corruption, and intrigue that tears apart the greatest empire the world has seen. The sprawling story spreads itself thin over a number of characters and stories.
Before Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, before Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull, there was Maurice "Rocket" Richard, the first player to score 50 goals in 50 games and the man generally regarded as the Babe Ruth of the National Hockey League (he was a member of the Montreal Canadiens, the hockey equivalent of the New York Yankees).
Directed by a prince and financed by a queen, The Legend of Suriyothai is a sprawling Thai epic in the tradition of Hollywood's biblical extravaganzas of the 1950s.
Spike Lee made a splash in the independent film world with his debut feature, an inventive low-budget romance with a strong-willed heroine. Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) can't decide among her three boyfriends: serious but sweet Jamie (Tommy Redmond Hicks), self-centered clotheshorse Greer (John Canada Terrell), and goofy, wisecracking bike messenger Mars Blackmon (Lee). Within this loose story line Lee launches into a character study of Darling and offers a slice of black urban life rarely seen on the screen.
2001: A Space Odyssey took the world on a mind-bending trip to outer space, but Fantastic Voyage is the original psychedelic inner-space adventure. When a brilliant scientist falls into a coma with an inoperable blood clot in the brain, a surgical team embarks on a top-secret journey to the center of the mind in a high-tech military submarine shrunk to microbial dimensions.
Take the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, add a dash of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and a lot more rum. Shake well and you'll have something resembling Dead Man's Chest, a bombastic sequel that's enjoyable as long as you don't think too hard about it. The film opens with the interrupted wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), both of whom are arrested for aiding in the escape of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in the first film.
Unwanted pregnancy might sound like a risky subject for slapstick comedy, but Knocked Up is from writer-director Judd Apatow--so we are in the hands of a man who likes to push things. And like Apatow's predecessor, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up is a shaggy crowd-pleaser, a comedy strewn with vulgarity but with a sweet heart at its center. A one-night stand between the utterly mismatched Ben (Seth Rogen, his first starring role) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) results in said pregnancy, and the two people reunite for mutual support--even though they barely know each other.
Walt Disney Pictures scored a surprise box-office hit with Invincible, and the movie deserved its good reviews as a fine example of how above-average writing, direction, and casting can turn formulaic material into something special. And make no mistake, this is a formulaic movie, with its real-life story embellished with Rocky-like enthusiasm, and lovingly crafted with the same quality of working-class humanism that made The Rookie a similarly popular Disney hit.
This clever, funny big-screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's best-seller takes some of the snarky bite out of the chick lit book, but smoothes out the characters' boxy edges to make a more satisfying movie. There's no doubt The Devil Wears Prada belongs to Meryl Streep, who turns in an Oscar-worthy (seriously!) strut as the monster editor-in-chief of Runway, an elite fashion magazine full of size-0, impossibly well-dressed plebes. This makes new second-assistant Andrea (Anne Hathaway), who's smart but an unacceptable size 6, stick out like a sore thumb.
A passionate, powerful drama based loosely on the final months of Ludwig van Beethoven's life, Copying Beethoven finds the maestro a haunted man, composing the most revolutionary yet unappreciated work of his lifetime; largely deaf; disappointed in his relationship with a wastrel nephew; and fascinated by a young, female composer, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), who goes to work for him transcribing music. Staying as a guest at a convent and engaged to a stolid engineer, Anna is drawn to Beethovenís tempestuous genius.
