November 2009
November 3rd
I Love You, Beth Cooper
Cast: Hayden Panettiere, Lauren Storm, Shawn Roberts
Director: Chris Columbus
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
MPAA Rating: Not yet rated
Based on: I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER by Larry Doyle
I Love You, Beth Cooper chronicles the story of a nerdy valedictorian who proclaims his love for the hottest and most popular girl in school, Beth Cooper, during his graduation speech. Much to his surprise, Beth shows up at his door that very night and decides to show him the best night of his life.
November 17th
My Sister’s Keeper
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Alec Baldwin, Abigail Breslin, Joan Cusack, Jason Patrick
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: MY SISTER’S KEEPER by Jodi Picoult
Sara and Brian Fitzgerald’s life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter, Kate, is forever altered when they learn that Kate has Leukemia. The parents’ only hope is to conceive another child, specifically intended to save Kate’s life. For some, such genetic engineering would raise both moral and ethical questions; for the Fitzgeralds, Sara in particular, there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive. And what it takes is Anna.
Kate and Anna share a bond closer than most sisters; though Kate is older, she relies on her little sister --- in fact, her life depends on Anna.
Throughout their young lives, the sisters endure various medical procedures and hospital stays --- just another part of their close-knit family’s otherwise normal life. Sara, a loving wife and mother who left her career as an attorney to care for her daughter, is sometimes lost inside the single-minded caregiver she has become in her efforts to save Kate. Her strong, supportive husband, Brian, is often rendered powerless and passive by his wife’s strength and determination. And their only son, Jesse, drifts, at times all but forgotten as Kate and Anna take center stage.
Until Anna, now 11, says “no.” Seeking medical emancipation, she hires her own lawyer, initiating a court case that divides the family and that could leave Kate’s rapidly failing body in the hands of fate.
Based on the bestselling book from Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper reveals surprising truths that challenge one’s perceptions of family love and loyalty and give new meaning to the definition of healing.
November 24th
Angels & Demons
Cast: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Pierfrancesco Favino, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Director: Ron Howard
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: ANGELS & DEMONS by Dan Brown
The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals.
When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati --- the most powerful underground organization in history --- he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization’s most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican’s only hope for survival.
Past Releases
October 2009
October 20th
Cheri
Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend, Felicity Jones, Iben Hjejle, Stephen Frears, Christopher Hampton
Director: Stephen Frears
Distributor: Miramax Films
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: CHÉRI by Colette
Set in the luxurious demi-monde of pre-First World War Paris, Chéri is the story of the love affair between the beautiful Léa and Chéri, the son of her old colleague and rival, Mme Oeloux.
Léa has educated the spoilt and callow boy in the ways of love, but after six years Mme has secretly arranged a marriage between Chéri and Edmée, daughter of another rich courtesan, Marie Laure.
As the inevitable moment of parting approaches, Léa and Chéri try to come to terms with their imminent separation, but the roots of their life of ease and pleasure reach deeper than even they imagine and they begin to understand, too late, how much they mean to one another.
August 2009
August 4th
The Soloist
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr., Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Steven Root
Director: Joe Wright
Distributor: DreamWorks
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: THE SOLOIST: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez
In The Soloist, an emotionally soaring drama about the redemptive power of music, journalist Steve Lopez discovers Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a former classical music prodigy, playing his violin on the streets of L.A. As Lopez endeavors to help the homeless man find his way back, a unique friendship is formed, one that transforms both their lives.
July 2009
July 21st
Coraline
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, John Hodgman, Ian McShane
Director: Henry Selick
Distributor: Focus Features, Universal Pictures International
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: CORALINE by Neil Gaiman
For the last three years, the world’s oddest and most talented animators, artisans and puppet fabricators have been hand-making LAIKA’s first animated feature film, Coraline. Led by Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, this team has created the first stop-motion feature shot in stereoscopic 3D.
Based on the beloved bestselling children’s classic by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is a fairy-tale nightmare steeped in classic storytelling, craftsmanship, and the old-fashioned art of moviemaking magic. In Coraline, a young girl walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life --- a better version. But when this wondrously off-kilter, fantastical adventure turns dangerous and her “Other” parents try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination and bravery to get back home.
Watchmen
Cast: Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matt Frewer, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino
Director: Zack Snyder
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: WATCHMEN (graphic novel) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” --- which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union --- is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion --- a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers --- Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the Watchmen?
June 2009
June 2nd
Revolutionary Road
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour, Kathy Bates
Director: Sam Mendes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: REVOLUTIONARY ROAD by Richard Yeats
Adapted from the revealing novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road is an incisive portrait of an American marriage seen through the eyes of Frank and April Wheeler. Yates’s story of 1950s America poses a question that has been reverberating through modern relationships ever since: can two people break away from the ordinary without breaking apart?
June 23rd
Inkheart
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Andy Serkis, Eliza Hope Bennett, Rafi Gavron
Director: Iain Softley
Distributor: New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: INKHEART by Cornelia Funke
Mortimer “Mo” Folchart and his 12-year-old daughter Meggie share a passion for books. What they also share is a unique gift for bringing characters from books to life when they read aloud. But there is danger: for every character brought to life from a book, a real person disappears into its pages.
On one of their trips to a secondhand book shop, Mo hears voices he hasn’t heard for years, and when he locates the book they’re coming from, it sends a shiver up his spine. It’s Inkheart, a book filled with illustrations of medieval castles and strange creatures --- a book he’s been searching for since Meggie was three years old, when her mother, Resa, vanished into its mystical world.
But Mo’s plan to use the book to find and rescue Resa is thwarted when Capricorn, the evil villain of Inkheart, kidnaps Meggie and demands Mo bring other evil fictional characters to life. Determined to rescue his daughter and send the fictional characters back where they belong, Mo assembles a unique group of friends and allies --- some real, some magical --- and embarks on a daring and perilous journey to set things right.
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Cast: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristin Scott Thomas, Leslie Bibb
Director: P.J. Hogan
Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC by Sophie Kinsella
In the glamorous world of New York, Rebecca Bloomwood is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping --- a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favorite magazine, but can’t quite get her foot in the door --- until ironically, she snags a job as an advice columnist for a financial magazine published by the same company. As her dreams are finally coming true, she goes to ever more hilarious and extreme efforts to keep her past from ruining her future.
May 2009
May 5th
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Kimberly Scott, Julia Ormond, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas
Director: David Fincher
Distributors: Warner Bros. Pictures International, Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: The short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
An old man physically ages backward. At age 50, he falls in love with a 30-year-old woman and then must come to terms with the relationship as they literally grow in opposite directions.
Wendy and Lucy
Cast: Michelle Williams, John Robinson, Will Oldham, Walter Dalton, Larry Fessenden, Will Patton
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Distributor: Oscilloscope Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: The short story “Train Choir” from LIVABILITY by Jon Raymond
Wendy Carroll is driving to Ketchikan, Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at the Northwestern Fish cannery, and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy. Wendy and Lucy addresses issues of sympathy and generosity at the edges of American life, revealing the limits and depths of people’s duty to each other in tough times.
May 26th
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Cast: Faye Yu, Henry O, Vida Ghahremani, Pasha Lychnikoff
Director: Wayne Wang
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Based on: The short story collection A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS by Yiyun Li
Mr. Shi is a retired widower from Beijing. When his daughter Yilan, who lives in the U.S., divorces, he decides to visit her in the small town where she works as a librarian. His intention is to stay with her until he helps her recover from the trauma. Mr. Shi likes to tell the people he meets in America that he’s a rocket scientist, enjoying their attention. But Yilan is less enthusiastic about his showing off, nor is she interested in his plan to rescue her marriage and reconstruct her life. When Mr. Shi insists on finding out the reason for the divorce, Yilan starts to avoid him.
April 2009
April 7th
The Tale of Despereaux
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Ben Falcone, Emma Watson, Tony Hale, Frances Conroy
Directors: Sam Fell and Rob Stevenhagen
Distributor: Universal Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: G
Based on: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo
Once upon a time, in the faraway kingdom of Dor, there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King brokenhearted, the Princess filled with longing and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this land...until Despereaux Tilling was born.
A modern fairy tale from visionary filmmaker Gary Ross, together with directors Sam fell and Rob Stevenhagen, The Tale of Despereaux tells the story of several unlikely heroes: Despereaux, a brave mouse banished to the dungeon for speaking with a human; Roscuro, a good-hearted rat who loves light and soup, but is exiled to darkness; Pea, a Princess in a gloomy castle who is prisoner to her father's grief; and Mig, a servant girl who longs to be a Princess, but is forced to serve the jailer.
Tiny and graced with oversized ears, Despereaux was born too big for his little world. Refusing to live his life cowering, he befriends a Princess named Pea and learns to read (rather than eat) books --- reveling in stories of knights, dragons and fair maidens. Banished from Mouseworld for being more man than mouse, Despereaux is rescued by another outcast, Roscuro, who also wants to hear the tales. But when the Princess dismisses Roscuro's friendship, he becomes the ultimate rat and plots revenge with fellow outsider Mig.
After Pea is kidnapped, Despereaux discovers he is the only one who can rescue her and that even the tiniest mouse can find the courage of a knight in shining armor. In this tale of bravery, forgiveness and redemption, one small creature will teach a kingdom that it takes only a little light to show the truth: what you look like doesn't equal what you are.
Yes Man
Cast: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Darby, John Michael Higgins, Terence Stamp
Director: Peyton Reed
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: YES MAN by Danny Wallace
Carl Allen is a guy whose life is going nowhere --- the operative word being “no” --- until he signs up for a self-help program based on one simple covenant: say yes to everything…and anything. Unleashing the power of “YES” begins to transform Carl’s life in amazing and unexpected ways, getting him promoted at work and opening the door to a new romance. But his willingness to embrace every opportunity might just become too much of a good thing.
April 28th
Hotel for Dogs
Cast: Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin, Kyla Pratt, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon, Don Cheadle, Johnny Simmons, Troy Gentile
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Distributor: DreamWorks
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: HOTEL FOR DOGS by Lois Duncan
When 16-year-old Andi and her younger brother, Bruce, find themselves in a foster home with a strict “no pets” policy, Andi has to use her quick wit to help find a new home for their dog, Friday. The kids stumble upon an abandoned hotel and begin transforming it into the perfect home for Friday --- as well as all the strays in the city. In no time, the kids have transformed the old hotel into something truly magical: a home for both the dogs and themselves. But they have also aroused the suspicions of the police who want to know --- who let the dogs in?
March 2009
March 10th
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Richard Johnson, Shelia Hancock, Rupert Friend, Jim Norton
Director: Mark Herman
Distributor: Miramax Films, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS by John Boyne
Bruno is a young boy living in Berlin in 1942 with his well-to-do family. But soon, the family is forced to move to Poland due to his father's promotion at the Krakow concentration camp. There, Bruno meets and befriends a young Jewish boy being held in the camp. Their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
A Secret
Cast: Patrick Bruel, Cecile De France, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric
Director: Claude Miller
Distributor: Strand Releasing
MPAA Rating: Not rated
Based on: SECRET by Philippe Grimbert
This is the discovery of a deep family secret and a passionate story, as seen through the eyes of Francois, an only child who invents an imaginary brother and imagines his parents' past. The day he turns 15, a family friend reveals an upsetting truth to the young Francois, but one that will make him stronger.
March 21st
Twilight
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Cam Gigandet, Edi Gathegi, Rachelle Lefevre, Anna Kendrick, Taylor Lautner
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Distributor: Paramount Pictures, Summit Entertainment LLC
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer
Twilight is an action-packed, modern-day love story between a vampire and a human. Bella Swan has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother remarries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn’t expect much of anything to change.
Then she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen, a boy unlike any she’s ever met. Intelligent and witty, he sees straight into her soul. Soon, Bella and Edward are swept up in a passionate and decidedly unorthodox romance. Edward can run faster than a mountain lion, he can stop a moving car with his bare hands and hasn’t aged since 1918. Like all vampires, he’s immortal. But he doesn’t have fangs and he doesn’t drink human blood; Edward and his family are unique among vampires in their lifestyle choice. To Edward, Bella is that thing he has waited 90 years for --- a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy.
But what will Edward and Bella do when James, Laurent and Victoria, the Cullens’ mortal vampire enemies, come to town, looking for her?
March 31st
Marley & Me
Cast: Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Arkin, Haley Bennett
Director: David Frankel
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Distribution
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: MARLEY & ME by John Grogan
An ambitious young reporter, John Grogan, and his wife, Jenny, also a reporter, move to a Florida, buy a house and adopt a Labrador puppy they name Marley. Marley quickly becomes a rollicking force of nature in their lives.
February 2009
February 3rd
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Cast: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Alexis Dziena, Ari Graynor, Aaron Yoo, Jay Baruchel
Director: Peter Sollett
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST by David Levithan
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a comedy about two people thrust together for one hilarious, sleepless night of adventure in a world of mix tapes, late-night living and live, loud music. Nick frequents New York’s indie rock scene nursing a broken heart and a vague ability to play bass. Norah is questioning pretty much all of her assumptions about the world. Though they have nothing in common except their taste for music, their chance encounter leads to an all-night quest to find a legendary band’s secret show and ends up becoming the first date in a romance that could change both their lives.
The Secret Life of Bees
Cast: Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okenedo, Paul Bettany, Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees, set in South Carolina in 1964, is the moving tale of Lily Owens, a 14-year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping.
February 10th
Nights in Rodanthe
Cast: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni, Viola Davis
Director: George C. Wolfe
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: NIGHTS IN RODANTHE by Nicholas Sparks
In the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe, Adrienne, a woman with her life in chaos, retreats to the tiny coastal town of Rodanthe, in the outer banks of North Carolina, to tend to a friend’s inn for the weekend. Here she hopes to find the tranquility she so desperately needs to rethink the conflicts surrounding her --- a wayward husband who has asked to come home, and a teenage daughter who resents her every decision.
Almost as soon as Adrienne gets to Rodanthe, a major storm is forecast and Dr. Paul Flanner arrives. The only guest at the inn, Flanner is not on a weekend escape but rather is there to face his own crisis of conscience.
Now, with the storm closing in, the two turn to each other for comfort and, in one magical weekend, set in motion a life-changing romance that will resonate throughout the rest of their lives.
February 17th
Body of Lies
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, Simon McBurney
Director: Ridley Scott
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: BODY OF LIES by David Ignatius
CIA operative Roger Ferris uncovers a lead on a major terrorist leader suspected to be operating out of Jordan. When Ferris devises a plan to infiltrate his network, he must first win the backing of cunning CIA veteran Ed Hoffman and the collegial, but perhaps suspect, head of Jordanian intelligence. Although ostensibly his allies, Ferris questions how far he can really trust these men without putting his entire operation --- and his life --- on the line.
Choke
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brad Henke, Joel Grey, Clark Gregg
Director: Clark Gregg
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: CHOKE by Chuck Palahniuk
Victor Mancini is a sex-addicted med-school dropout who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private medical hospital by playing an Irish indentured servant in a colonial-era theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Danny, and his mother’s beautiful physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
Cast: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox, Max Minghella, Jeff Bridges
Director: Robert Weide
Distributor: MGM Distribution Company
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE: A Memoir by Toby Young
In this hilariously funny fish-out-of-water tale, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People tracks the outrageous escapades of Sidney Young, a smalltime, bumbling British celebrity journalist who is hired by an upscale magazine in New York City. In spectacular fashion, Sydney enters high society and burns bridges with bosses, peers and superstars.
After disrupting one black-tie event by allowing a wild pig to run rampant, Sidney catches the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of Sharps magazine, and accepts a job with the magazine in New York City. Clayton warns Sidney that he’d better impress and charm everyone he can, if he wants to succeed. Instead, Sydney insults and annoys fellow writer Alison Olsen. He dares to target the star clients of power publicist Eleanor Johnson. He upsets his direct boss, Lawrence Maddox, and tries to make amends by hiring a stripper to dance for Lawrence during a staff meeting. Sidney, of course, doesn’t stop there, finding creative ways to annoy nearly everyone. His saving grace: a rising, sexy starlet develops an off affection for him, and in time, Alison’s friendship might be the only thing saving Sidney from torpedoing his career.
The Midnight Meat Train
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Peter Jacobson, Dan Callahan, Roger Bart
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Distributor: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: The short story “Midnight Meat Train” from BOOKS OF BLOOD by Clive Barker
When Leon Kaufman’s latest body of work --- a collection of provocative nighttime studies of the city and its inhabitants --- earns the struggling photographer interest from prominent art gallerist Susan Hoff, she propels him to get grittier and show the darker side of humanity for his upcoming debut at her downtown art space. Believing he’s finally on track for success, Leon’s obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer, Mahogany, the subway murderer who stalks late-night commuters --- ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways imaginable. With his concerned girlfriend Maya fearing for his life, Leon’s relentless fascination with Mahogany lures him further and further into the bowels of the subways and ultimately into an abyss of pure evil --- inadvertently pulling Maya right along with him.
February 24th
Sex Drive
Cast: Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew, Clark Duke, Seth Green, James Marsden, Katrina Bowden, Charlie McDermott, Alice Greczyn, Mark L. Young, Cole Petersen, Susie Abromeit
Director: Sean Anders
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: SEX DRIVE by Andy Behrens
Eighteen-year-old Ian Lafferty sets out on a cross country drive with his best friends Lance and Felicia, in order to lose his virginity to a red-hot babe he met on the Internet. But the journey, filled with hilarious misadventures and raunchy escapades, teaches all three more than they expected about life and love. Randy, raucous and unexpectedly romantic, Sex Drive follows three friends on the road trip of a lifetime!
What Just Happened
Cast: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Stewart, Michael Wincott, Bruce Willis
Director: Barry Levinson
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Based on: WHAT JUST HAPPENED?: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line by Art Linson
In this rollicking shrewd tale, a man is besieged by people who want him to be all sorts of things --- a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy, youthful and tuned in --- everything except for the one thing he and all the preposterously behaved people he’s surrounded by really are: bumbling human beings just trying to survive by any means necessary.
Ben is already in over his head trying to balance the tug-of-war of having two ex-wives and two different families with his latest venture --- the boldly “visionary” movie Fiercely, starring Sean Penn --- when everything that can go wrong goes completely screwy.
Fiercely looks like an audience-offending flop, drawing the ire of iron-gloved studio chief Lou, who forces him into tangling with the film’s rebellious and drug-addled director Jeremy. Meanwhile, he’s confused and bewitched by his ex Kelly, who can’t make up her mind about him; shocked by his daughter Zoe, who seems to have grown up overnight; infuriated by his screenwriter friend Scott, who’s trying to make a deal with him while making moves on his former wife; horrified by a hirsute Bruce Willis and flummoxed by Willis’s nebbishy agent Dick, who’s scared to death of his own clients.
January 2009
January 6th
Babylon A.D.
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Gerard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling, Mark Strong
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Distributor: Twentieth Cenrury Fox-Film Corporation
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: BABYLON BABIES by Maurice Dantec
A mercenary charged with delivering a young woman from Russia to Canada learns that she has been manipulated by a synthetic virus and what lies inside her could doom the human race.
January 13th
Brideshead Revisited
Cast: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Greta Scacchi, Jonathan Cake, Patrick Malahide
Director: Julian Jarrold
Distributor: Miramax Films, Warner Independent Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based on: BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
A provocative and suspenseful drama, Brideshead Revisited tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in the pre-WWII era. In the film, Charles Ryder becomes entranced with the noble Marchmain family, first through the charming and provocative Sebastian Flyte, and then his sophisticated sister, Julia. The rise and fall of Charles’s infatuations reflect the decline of a decadent era in England between the wars.
January 20th
City of Ember
Cast: Bill Murray, Toby Jones, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Harry Treadaway, Mary Kay Place, MacKenzie Crook, Liz Smith
Director: Gil Kenan
Distributor: Fox Walden
MPAA Rating: PG
Based on: THE CITY OF EMBER by Jeanne duPrau
For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing --- and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever.
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