August 3, 2004
13 Going on 30
This body-switch comedy stars Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo. In 1987 a 13-year-old girl named Jenna wishes to be grown up and is transformed into a woman. The adult Jenna (Garner) now finds herself in the year 2004 as a 30-year-old magazine editor with the brain of a teenager. As she tries to find out what happened during the intervening 17 years, Jenna gets reacquainted with childhood friend Matt, now also grown up and played by Ruffalo.
Hidalgo
Viggo Mortensen stars in this action-adventure movie set in the late 19th century. Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen) is working with his mustang Hidalgo in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show when he decides to compete in a 3000-mile race across Arabia. Hopkins and Hidalgo participate in the grueling race, during which many men and horses die, and along the way the cowboy meets a sheik (Omar Sharif) and gets involved with two women.
August 10, 2004
Good Bye, Lenin!
This offbeat German-language comedy is set in Berlin around 1989. A dedicated pro-Communist East Berlin woman is in a coma at the time the Wall comes down. Then when she regains consciousness, the doctors tell her adult son Alex that the slightest shock could kill her. To keep his beloved mother alive, Alex embarks on an elaborate ruse to try to prevent her from learning that Communism in Germany is in a state of collapse.
Johnson Family Vacation
This family road-trip comedy stars Cedric the Entertainer, Bow Wow, and Vanessa Williams. Nate Johnson (Cedric) and his wife (Williams) live in the L.A. area with their three kids, one of whom is played by Bow Wow. The Johnsons go on vacation and drive out to Missouri. Along the way they have a series of misadventures, some of which result from picking up a weird hitchhiker (Shannon Elizabeth). Steve Harvey also appears in the movie.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
In Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1, the Bride (Uma Thurman) tracked down and killed two members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. As the story continues in Vol. 2, she pursues the two remaining Deadly Vipers (Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen), as well as Bill (David Carradine). We watch the Bride proceeding with her roaring rampage of revenge, and we also see her train with martial-arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu).
The Prince & Me
Julia Stiles and Luke Mably are paired in this romantic comedy. Paige (Stiles), who grew up on a Wisconsin farm, meets Edvard (Mably), the crown prince of Denmark, when he comes to the U.S. to attend college. After a somewhat rocky courtship, Paige faces a decision: should she become the future queen of Denmark or should she pursue her original dream of studying medicine and working for Doctors Without Borders?
August 17, 2004
Bon Voyage
Set in 1940, this French-language comedy stars Isabelle Adjani. When the Nazis approach Paris, many upper-crust residents flee to Bordeaux. A number of characters are caught up in this, including a pampered movie star (Adjani). She is pursued by three suitors, one of whom went to jail for her when she killed someone. Another suitor is a government official (Gérard Depardieu), while a third (played by Peter Coyote) may be a German agent.
Connie and Carla
Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette star in this comedy with many musical numbers. Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Collette) are show-tune performers who play a waiting lounge at a Midwestern airport. After witnessing a murder, they are pursued by mobsters and flee to L.A., where they pose as female impersonators. They become popular entertainers in a drag club, make new friends, and Connie falls for a guy (David Duchovny).
Godsend
This thriller stars Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as the Duncans, a married couple whose eight-year-old son dies in an accident. A scientist (Robert De Niro) helps them have another child cloned from the DNA of the dead son. The Duncans cut all ties and move far away to raise the cloned boy, who seems normal for several years. But when the cloned boy reaches the age at which their first child died, things go terribly awry.
New York Minute
This comedy stars real-life twins Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen as fictional teenage twins Jane and Roxy Ryan. The movie chronicles a day in the Ryan twins' lives where they go to Manhattan, each for her own purposes. Jane is there to give a speech that may win her a scholarship to Oxford, while Roxy goes in hopes of handing out her demo tapes at a music video shoot. The film shows the twins clashing with each other from Chinatown to Harlem.
Taking Lives
Angelina Jolie stars in this thriller as Illeana Scott, an American FBI profiler who travels to Montreal to work on the case of a serial killer. The pattern of the crimes is that the murderer successively assumes the identity of each victim. An art dealer (Ethan Hawke) claims to have seen the killer, and an old woman (Gena Rowlands) thinks the murderer might be her son (Kiefer Sutherland). Also appearing in the film are Olivier Martinez and Tchéky Karyo.
August 24, 2004
Clifford's Really Big Movie
This children's animated film is spun off from a PBS television series. The title character Clifford (voice of John Ritter) is a humongous, lovable red dog. When Clifford comes to believe it's costing his owners too much to feed him, he joins a traveling carnival, hoping to win a contest where the prize is a lifetime supply of Tummy Yummies. Also performing in the carnival are a ferret (voice of Wayne Brady) and a cow (voice of Jenna Elfman).
Dogville
Written and directed by Lars von Trier, this is a provocative film starring Nicole Kidman. The story takes place in an imaginary Rocky Mountains town, represented by a stage with chalk markings and a few props. During the Great Depression, a stranger named Grace (Kidman), who's on the run from gangsters, arrives in the hamlet. The townspeople, several of whom are played by well-known actors, take Grace in, but they eventually treat her horribly.
Ella Enchanted
Adapted from a novel by Gail Carson Levine, this comedy is set in a fairy tale kingdom. The central character is young Ella (Anne Hathaway), who is under a spell that makes her obey any command given her by anyone. As Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy) falls for Ella, her obedience spell threatens to become a big problem. Accompanied by a talking book named Benny, she sets out to find her fairy godmother in hopes of having her spell lifted.
The Girl Next Door
This teen sex comedy stars Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert. High school senior Matthew (Hirsch) gets romantically involved with Danielle (Cuthbert), the sexy young woman house-sitting next door. But Matthew learns Danielle is a porn actress, and she eventually travels to Las Vegas with her sleazy producer (Timothy Olyphant). That's when Matthew and his nerdy pals head out after her, hoping to "rescue" her and set things right.
Laws of Attraction
This romantic comedy stars Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore as Manhattan lawyers who oppose each other in divorce proceedings. Sexually attracted to each other, they get drunk and enjoy a one-night stand, but remain professional adversaries. Later, a big case requires both attorneys to go to Ireland to look into competing claims over a castle. There they again get drunk and when they awaken next morning, they find they are married.
August 31, 2004
The Passion of the Christ
This is Mel Gibson's provocative dramatization of the final hours of Jesus' life and his Crucifixion. In its theatrical release, the controversial film did huge box office, but critics were divided. People who praise the movie generally find it powerful and beautiful, while those who dislike it usually cite its graphic violence and their concern that it may fuel anti-Semitism. The intense film evoked strong reactions from most who saw it in theaters.
Twisted
Ashley Judd stars in this thriller that also features Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia. Jessica (Judd) is a San Francisco homicide detective, a heavy drinker, and an emotionally troubled woman who has casual sex with men. When a series of corpses turns up, the pattern emerges that all the victims had been Jessica's sexual partners. She begins to question her own sanity and fears she is committing the murders while in some sort of altered mental state.
