The director of Chicago, Rob Marshall, transports us into a mysterious and exotic world that casts a potent spell. A Cinderella story like no other, Memoirs Of A Geisha stars Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li. "Gorgeously photographed, meticulously directed andihypnotically acted. Memoirs of A Geisha isiluxurious, ethereal andiintoxicating. It will leave you breathless." (Rex Reed, New York Observer)
The original caped crusader is back! Antonio Banderas and Academy Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones (2002, Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) return for more swashbuckling action, adventure and excitement in the explosive cinematic thrill-ride, The Legend of Zorro! Having spent the last ten years fighting injustice and cruelty, Alejandro de la Vega (Banderas) is now facing his greatest challenge: his loving wife Elena (Zeta-Jones) has thrown him out of the house! Elena has filed for divorce and found comfort in the arms of Count Armand (Rufus Sewell), a dashing French aristocrat.
Academy Award winner Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey star in this adrenaline-charged drama about the sexy, high-stakes world of sports betting, where fortunes can be made and lost with the flip of a coin. When Brandon Lang (McConaughey) becomes the protÈgÈ of sports gambling's power player, Walter Abrams (Pacino), he swiftly becomes the golden boy of the high-rolling world for consistently picking football winners. Now, with millions on the line, he finds himself in a deadly game of con-versus-con with his new mentor.
If you're going to submit yourself to a dazzling example of mainstream action, this thriller is as good a choice as any. Eraser is a live-action cartoon, the kind of movie in which Arnold Schwarzenegger can survive nail bombs, hails of bullets, an attack by voracious alligators ("You're luggage," he says, after killing one of the beasts), and still emerge from the mayhem relatively intact. Arnold plays an "eraser" from the Federal Witness Protection Program, so named because he can virtually erase the existence of anyone he's been assigned to protect.
Serenity offers perfect proof that Firefly deserved a better fate than premature TV cancellation. Joss Whedon's acclaimed sci-fi Western hybrid series was ideally suited (in Browncoats, of course) for a big-screen conversion, and this action-packed adventure allows Whedon to fill in the Firefly backstory, especially the history and mystery of the spaceship Serenity's volatile and traumatized stowaway, River Tam (Summer Glau).
One of the most critically acclaimed films of 1995, this wrenchingly sad but extraordinarily moving drama provides an authentic, superbly acted portrait of two people whose lives intersect just as they've reached their lowest depths of despair. Ben (Nicolas Cage, in an Oscar-winning performance) is a former movie executive who's lost his wife and family in a sea of alcoholic self-destruction.
As its title suggests, Layer Cake is a crime thriller that cuts into several levels of its treacherous criminal underworld. The title is actually one character's definition of the drug-trade hierarchy, but it's also an apt metaphor for the separate layers of deception, death, and betrayal experienced by the film's unnamed protagonist, a cocaine traffic middle-man played with smooth appeal by Daniel Craig (rumored at the time of this film's release to be on the short list for consideration as the next James Bond).
Jane Fonda came into her own with this Oscar-winning performance as an insecure high-class call girl who can't make it as a legitimate actress or model yet can't give up her addiction. She loves the control too much. But when she's stalked by a killer, she's forced to confront the darker aspects of her nature and profession. It's a complex and authentic performance and Fonda plays it cool and smart. Typical of early '70s films, Klute peels away social inhibition and hypocrisy with precision and candor. It's also typical of director Alan J.
Will Smith's easygoing charm makes Hitch the kind of pleasant, uplifting romantic comedy that you could recommend to almost anyone--especially if there's romance in the air. As suave Manhattan dating consultant Alex Hitch Hitchens, Smith plays up the smoother, sophisticated side of his established screen persona as he mentors a pudgy accountant (Kevin James) on the lessons of love.
After a string of mediocre movies, director Tim Burton regains his footing as he shifts from macabre fairy tales to Southern tall tales. Big Fish twines in and out of the oversized stories of Edward Bloom, played as a young man by Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge, Down with Love) and as a dying father by Albert Finney (Tom Jones). Edward's son Will (Billy Crudup, Almost Famous) sits by his father's bedside but has little patience with the old man's fables, because he feels these stories have kept him from knowing who his father really is.
