Selected November Releases
NOVEMBER 2
"Shrek"
"Shrek" is an animated comedy that features the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. The title character (voice of Mike Myers) is an ogre who yearns to live a solitary life in his swamp. However, he’s deeply disturbed when a bunch of fairy-tale creatures come into his swamp because they have been banished by Lord Farquaad (voice of John Lithgow). But Lord Farquaad longs for the imprisoned Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz), and Shrek agrees to free her and bring her back if Lord Farquaad will guarantee the return of the swamp to solitude. On his mission to rescue Princess Fiona, Shrek is accompanied by a motor-mouth donkey called Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy). Eighty-seven percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes liked "Shrek."
NOVEMBER 6
"Baby Boy"
In "Baby Boy" writer-director John Singleton has created a hard-hitting drama about the African American experience in South Central Los Angeles. Jody (Tyrese Gibson) is an unemployed 20-year-old who has fathered two children by two different women, yet he still lives at home with his 36-year-old single mother (A.J. Johnson). Jody has no car, but he frequently borrows one owned by his employed girlfriend Yvette (Taraji P. Henson), sometimes to go see his other girlfriend Peanut (Tamara Bass). But Yvette is getting fed up with the way Jody treats her, and Jody’s life grows more complicated when his mother begins a romantic relationship with a man (Ving Rhames) in the landscaping business. There’s emotional honesty in this film, and it never suggests there are easy answers to the difficult questions it raises."The Golden Bowl"
Set in the early years of the 20th century, "The Golden Bowl" is a Merchant-Ivory drama adapted from a Henry James novel. Adam Verver (Nick Nolte) is an extremely wealthy widower who is close to his adult daughter Maggie (Kate Beckinsale). Amerigo (Jeremy Northam) is a charming titled Italian in need of money, a problem he solves by marrying Maggie. Later, Adam marries Maggie’s best friend Charlotte (Uma Thurman), an impoverished socialite. But unbeknownst to Adam and Maggie, Amerigo and Charlotte were formerly lovers. As time goes by, Amerigo and Charlotte find themselves being drawn back together, and when all four characters come to understand what is going on, they struggle quietly with their conflicting desires.
"Legally Blonde"
Reese Witherspoon sparkles as the star of this lightweight comedy. Elle Woods (Witherspoon) is president of her sorority and a fashion major who finishes college with a 4.0 grade point. Elle expects her politically ambitious boyfriend Warner (Matthew Davis) to propose to her, but instead he dumps her in the belief that her blonde look and bubbly personality won’t serve him well in reaching his goal of becoming a U.S. Senator by age 30. To prove Warner wrong, Elle enrolls at Harvard Law School, where she assists a professor (Victor Garber) on a high-profile murder case involving a member of her sorority. Meanwhile, Warner has a new girlfriend (Selma Blair), but Elle makes new friends of her own and proves to be both smart and competent after all.
NOVEMBER 13
"America’s Sweethearts"
Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and John Cusack star in this comedy about the business of marketing movies. Eddie (Cusack) and Gwen (Zeta-Jones) are a husband-and-wife acting team who have made many popular films together, and they have become known as "America’s sweethearts." But Gwen’s affair has their marriage on the skids just as their latest movie -- an expensive production that can make or break the studio -- is about to be released. Lee (Crystal) is assigned the task of handling publicity for the film, and he tries desperately to keep the press from finding out the couple is headed for divorce court. But things get complicated when Eddie and Kiki (Roberts), who is Gwen’s sister and assistant, start to fall for each other.
"The Closet"
"The Closet" is a French-language comedy starring Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil. Francois Pignon (Auteuil) is an accountant at a condom company who learns he’s about to be fired. Pignon, a divorced heterosexual, comes up with a scam that convinces the company he is gay, and they decide not to fire him to avoid the possibility of a lawsuit based on discrimination because of sexual orientation. Immediately everyone at the company starts to treat Pignon with careful political correctness, and a homophobic coworker (Depardieu) suddenly finds it expedient to be nice to Pignon. But to keep his job, Pignon must at all times keep up the pretense of being gay, even to the point of riding the condom company’s float in a gay pride parade.
"crazy/beautiful"
In this romantic drama, Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez portray high school students who fall for each other. Nicole (Dunst), who is the daughter of a liberal white U.S. Congressman, is a troubled girl who skips school a lot and mixes drinking and driving. Part of her problem is that she doesn’t get along well with her stepmother. Carlos (Hernandez) comes from a hard-working Latino family and is a model student who aspires to go to the U.S. Naval Academy. He endures long bus rides to an upscale part of Los Angeles to attend school, where Nicole is also a student. Nicole and Carlos become involved in a romantic and sexual relationship, and both families become concerned when Jay starts to be influenced by Nicole’s self-destructive ways.
"Lara Croft: Tomb Raider"
Angelina Jolie stars as the title character, a major babe who kicks butt, in this action-adventure movie based on a video game. Lara Croft is a martial arts expert and collector of artifacts who becomes aware that there is an talisman known as the Triangle of Light which has been broken into two pieces. A secret society called the Illuminati is trying to find the two pieces and put them together at the moment when the nine planets come into alignment, which will give the Illuminati the ability to control time. But the movie is really about the action sequences that result as Lara fights to keep the evil Illuminati from being successful. Lara’s father is played by Jon Voight, who is Angelina Jolie’s father. Eighty-five percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t like "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
"Osmosis Jones"
Parts of this comedy are live-action and star Bill Murray, while other parts are animated and feature the voices of several celebrities. Bill Murray plays Frank Detorri, a zoo worker who is careless about what he eats. In one case Frank gets sick from eating a tainted hard-boiled egg, and in another he vomits on his daughter’s teacher when he eats an improperly cleaned oyster. For the animated parts of the film, we are taken inside Frank’s body, where we meet a white blood cell named Osmosis Jones (voice of Chris Rock) and a cold capsule named Drix (voice of David Hyde Pierce), who fight against a nasty virus (voice of Laurence Fishburne). Other voices heard are those of William Shatner, Ron Howard, and Brandy Norwood.
"Under the Sand"
Cowritten and directed by Francois Ozon, "Under the Sand" is a haunting French-language art-house drama that stars Charlotte Rampling. Rampling portrays Marie Drillon, an attractive woman in her mid-fifties who teaches English at a university in Paris. One summer day Marie and her somewhat older husband Jean (Bruno Cremer) go to the seashore. Marie opts for a nap while Jean takes a swim, but when she awakes, he has disappeared. Marie eventually returns to her job, works out at the gym, sometimes sees friends, and even takes a lover (Jacques Nolot), but she also continues to see and talk to her vanished husband as if he were still with her. But this movie isn’t really about the mystery surrounding Jean’s disappearance -- it’s about the grief experienced by Marie.
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