Movie Releases for the Week of May 24th, 2004

  • The Day After Tomorrow
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    The Day After Tomorrow

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    20th Century Fox
    Rating:
     
    What if we are on the brink of a new Ice Age? This is the question that haunts climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid). Hall’s research indicates that global warming could trigger an abrupt and catastrophic shift in the planet’s climate. The ice cores that he’s drilled in Antarctica show that it happened before, ten thousand years ago. And now he’s warning officials that it could happen again if they don’t act soon. But his warning comes too late.

    It all begins when Hall witnesses a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island break off the Antarctic Ice Shelf. Then a series of increasingly severe weather events start to unfold around the globe: hail the size of grapefruit batters Tokyo, record-breaking hurricane winds pound Hawaii; snow falls in New Delhi, and then a devastating series of tornadoes whips through Los Angeles.

    A phone call from a colleague in Scotland, Professor Rapson (Ian Holm), confirms Jack’s worst fears: these intense weather events are symptoms of a massive global change. Melting polar caps has poured too much fresh water into the oceans and disrupted the currents that stabilize our climate system. Global warming has pushed the planet over the edge and into a new Ice Age. And it all will happen during one global super storm.

    While Jack warns the White House of the impending climate shift, his 17 year-old son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself trapped in New York City where he and some friends have been competing in a high school academic competition. He must now cope with the severe flooding and plummeting temperatures in Manhattan. Having taken refuge inside the Manhattan Public Library, Sam manages to reach his father by phone. Jack only has time for one warning: stay inside at all costs.

    As full-scale, massive evacuations to the south begin, Jack heads north to New York City to save Sam. But not even Jack is prepared for what is about to happen – to him, to his son, and to his planet.
  • Saved!
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    Saved!

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    United Artists
    Rating:
     
    Good girl Mary (Jena Malone) can't believe it when she gets pregnant by her newly-gay boyfriend. She also can't believe the actions of her popular, relentlessly devout best friend, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), who's looking after her wheelchair-bound brother Roland (Macaulay Culkin), attempting to convert adamantly Jewish Cassandra (Eva Amurri), and trying to snag cute newcomer Patrick (Patrick Fugit), a hip skateboarding missionary. By the time Mary's secret is revealed, Hilary Faye has gone to extremes to get the outsiders expelled from school, with spectacular results, and Mary is forced to decide what's worth believing in the first place. In this dark comedy, a young, talented cast comes together to get Saved.
  • Soul Plane
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    Soul Plane

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    MGM
    Rating:
     
    Why just fly when you can soar with soul! After a humiliating experience on an airplane, Nashawn Wade sues the airline and is awarded a huge settlement. Determined to make good with the money, he creates the full-service airline of his dreams, complete with sexy stewardesses, funky music, a hot onboard dance club, and a bathroom attendant. Departing from all-new Terminal X in Los Angeles, Soul Plane gives "fly" a whole new meaning, taking its passengers on a maiden voyage full of comedy.
  • Raising Helen
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    Raising Helen

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Touchstone Pictures
    Rating:
     
    In this heartwarming comedy from director Garry Marshall ("Runaway Bride," "The Princess Diaries"), Helen Harris (Hudson) is living the life she always dreamed of. Her career at a top Manhattan modeling agency is on the rise; she spends her days at fashion shows and her nights at the city's hottest clubs. But her carefree lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when one phone call changes everything. Helen soon finds herself responsible for her sister's children -- 15-year-old Audrey (Panettiere), 10-year-old Henry (Spencer Breslin), and 5-year-old Sarah (Abigail Breslin). No one doubts that Helen is the coolest aunt in New York, but what does this glamour girl know about raising kids? The fun begins as Helen goes through the transformation from super hip to super mom, but she quickly finds that dancing at 3 a.m. doesn't mix with getting kids to school on time, advice that Helen's older sister, Jenny (Cusack), is only too quick to dish out. Along the way, Helen finds support in the most unusual place with Dan Parker (Corbett), the handsome young pastor and principal of the kids' new school, and realizes the choice she has to make is between the life she's always loved and the new loves of her life.
  • Baadasssss!
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    Baadasssss!

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Sony Pictures Classics
    Rating:
     
    The year was 1971 and the hot ticket at the box office was "The French Connection". Little did audiences and the film industry know that in the same year the birth of a new era was about to explode…Independent Black Cinema. The city was Detroit, and a weathered Melvin Van Peebles sat alone in the Grand Circus theatre watching only a few ticket buyers enter where his new film - his follow up to the successful comedy "Watermelon Man" - was about to play. After months of clawing, scheming and fighting to finish the film he wanted to make, the moment had arrived, and in a virtually empty theatre, Melvin sat with just a few curious onlookers. By the end of the screening, Melvin was alone. No one could have predicted what happened after that momentous end would be the beginning of history. Melvin Van Peebles stunned the world for the first time with his debut feature "The Story of a Three-Day Pass". Filmed in France and selected as the French entry in the San Francisco Film Festival, Melvin's film was awarded the top prize. Saying it was controversial would be an understatement. In 1968, for a black man to walk up to the podium and accept the top festival award for a film he had to go abroad to make now that's how you make your mark. After his comedy "Watermelon Man," Melvin was determined to push the Hollywood boundaries with the groundbreaking, and even more controversial, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song". Turned down by every major studio including Columbia, where he had a three-picture deal, Melvin was forced to basically self-finance. Risking everything he had, Melvin delivered to the world the first Black Ghetto hero on the big screen, whether they were ready or not!
  • The Mother
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    The Mother

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Sony Pictures Classics
    Rating:
     
    Anne Reid stars as May, an ordinary grandmother from the North of England. When her husband dies on a family visit to London, she recedes into the background of her busy, metropolitan children's lives. Stuck in an unfamiliar city, far from home, May fears that she has become another invisible old lady whose life is more or less over. Until, that is, she embarks on a passionate affair with Darren (Craig), a man half her age who is renovating her son's house and sleeping with her daughter.
  • Wake
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    Wake

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Echelon Entertainment
    Rating:
     
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    Frankie and Johnny Are Married

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    IFC Films
    Rating:
     
    A romantic comedy about Michael Pressman, a successful television director/producer and Lisa Chess, a talented struggling actress, who are married and decide to mount a production of "Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune" in equity-waiver in Los Angeles with the hopes of bringing some life and joy back into their marriage. They bring in Alan Rosenberg to play Johnny and Lisa plays Frankie and Michael directs. What starts off as a simple idea to revitalize the marriage turns into an utter nightmare. Alan becomes insanely difficult and the marriage becomes even more strained as the rehearsal process becomes tense and explosive. It reaches a point where after a devastatingly disastrous preview, Michael shuts the play down and loses his whole investment, and possibly his marriage. His only choice is to take over the role of Johnny himself and fire Alan Rosenberg. Now the stakes are truly high as to whether or not this couple can pull it off.
  • The Burial Society
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    The Burial Society

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Regent Releasing
    Rating:
     
    Sheldon Kasner, a man of quiet desperation who works as a loan manager at the Hebrew National Bank is overworked and under-appreciated. He struggles to surpass the limitations of his mundane life. Sheldon, the most unlikely of criminals, is drawn into the underworld of money laundering in a desperate attempt to overcome his mediocre existence. Unfortunately for Sheldon, events don't unfold as he expects and the missing two million dollars has him begging for his life as he's dangled from a bridge in the opening sequence of "The Burial Society". Forced to reconsider his strategy, Sheldon concocts an elaborate plan involving the Chevrah Kadisha or Burial Society - devout Jewish men who prepare dead bodies for burial. Their quick, quiet, and anonymous nature is perfectly suited to Sheldon's sophisticated plan. He offers his services to the Burial Society, with the idea of staging his own death. For the Burial Society, the inept businessman is the new blood that they've been looking for if their dying tradition is to survive. The kindly older men form a kinship with Sheldon as they indoctrinate him into their world, teaching him the ritualistic ways of the Chevrah Kadisha. As far as Sheldon is concerned, his plans are back on track. But nothing is as it seems and the old men of the Burial Society are hardly the innocents that they appear.
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    Hum Tum

    Release Date:
    Studio:
    Unknown
    Rating: