2004
Action / Horror / Drama / Thriller
DTS
Zack Snyder
Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell, Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers, Michael Barry, Lindy Booth, Jayne Eastwood, Boyd Banks, Inna Korobkina, R.D. Reid, Kim Poirier, Matt Frewer
100 min / USA:109 min (unrated director's cut)
Rated R for pervasive strong horror violence and gore, language and sexuality.R
Are you ready to get down with the sickness?
Movie logic dictates that you shouldn't remake a classic, but Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead defies that logic and comes up a winner. You
could argue that George A. Romero's 1978 original was sacred ground for horror buffs, but it was a low-budget classic, and Snyder's action-packed upgrade benefits from the same manic pacing that energized Romero's continuing zombie saga. Romero's indictment of mega-mall commercialism is lost (it's arguably outmoded anyway), so Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn compensate with the same setting--in this case,
a Milwaukee shopping mall under siege by cannibalistic zombies in the wake of a devastating viral outbreak--a well-chosen cast (led by Sarah
Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer), some outrageously morbid humor, and a no-frills plot that keeps tension high and blood
splattering by the bucketful. Horror buffs will catch plenty of tributes to Romero's film (including cameos by three of its cast members, including gore-makeup wizard Tom Savini), and shocking images are abundant enough to qualify this Dawn as an excellent zombie-flick double-feature with 28 Days Later, its de facto British counterpart
2004
Action / Drama / Sci-Fi / Thriller / Adventure
DTS
Roland Emmerich
Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mihok, Jay O. Sanders, Sela Ward, Austin Nichols, Arjay Smith, Tamlyn Tomita, Sasha Roiz, Ian Holm, Nassim Sharara, Carl Alacchi, Kenneth Welsh, Michael A. Samah
124 min
Rated PG-13 for intense situations of peril.PG-13
This movie takes a big-budget, special-effects-filled look at what the world would look like if the greenhouse effect and global warming continued at such levels that they resulted in worldwide catastrophe and disaster, including multiple hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves, floods and the beginning of the next Ice Age. At the center of the story is a paleoclimatologist (a scientist who studies the ways weather patterns changed in the past), Professor Adrian Hall (Quaid), who tries to save the world from the effects of global warming while also trying to get to his son, Sam (Gyllenhaal), who was in New York City as part of a scholastic competition, when the city was overwhelmed by the chilling beginnings of the new Ice Age. In addition to all of the other challenges Dr. Hall faces, he's also going against the flow as humanity races south to warmer climes, and he's nearly the only one going north...
1978
Drama / War
70 mm 6-Track
Michael Cimino
Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren, Shirley Stoler, Rutanya Alda, Pierre Segui, Mady Kaplan, Amy Wright, Mary Ann Haenel, Richard Kuss, Joe Grifasi
183 min
R
Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, The Deer Hunter is simultaneously an audacious directorial conceit and one of the greatest films ever made about
friendship and the personal impact of war. Like Apocalypse Now, it's hardly a conventional battle film--the soldier's experience was handled with greater authenticity in Platoon--but its depiction of war on an intimate scale packs a devastatingly dramatic punch. Director Michael Cimino may be manipulating our emotions with masterful skill, but he does it in a way that stirs the soul and pinches our collective nerves with graphic, high-intensity scenes of men under life-threatening duress. Although Russian-roulette gambling games were not a common occurrence during the Vietnam war, they're used here as a metaphor for the futility of the war itself. To the viewer, they become unforgettably intense rites of passage for the best friends--Pennsylvania steelworkers
played by Robert De Niro, John Savage, and Oscar winner Christopher Walken--who may survive or perish during their tour through a tropical landscape of hell. Back home, their loved ones must cope with the war's domestic impact, and in doing so they allow The Deer Hunter to achieve a rare combination of epic storytelling and intimate, heart-rending drama
1972
Adventure / Thriller / Drama
Mono
John Boorman
Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Ed Ramey, Billy Redden, Seamon Glass, Randall Deal, Bill McKinney, Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward, Lewis Crone, Ken Keener, Johnny Popwell, John Fowler, Kathy Rickman
109 min
R
On a weekend canoeing trip down a river in the Georgia back country, four urban businessmen enter a nightmare in which both nature and mankind conspire to send them through a crucible of danger and degradation in which their lives and perhaps even their souls are put at horrendous risk.
1999
Adventure / Comedy / Music
DTS
Adam Rifkin
Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Edward Furlong, Sam Huntington, Lin Shaye, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Miles Dougal, Nick Scotti, Emmanuelle Chriqui, David Quane, Rodger Barton, Kathryn Haggis, David Gardner, Shannon Tweed
95 min
Rated R for strong language, drug use and sex-related content.R
It's hard to call Detroit Rock City a "coming of
age" movie--since it's hard to argue that any of the characters do any genuine growing up. But even though it's about four young metalheads trying to get to a KISS concert, the movie actually has more in common with sincere portraits of adolescence than it does with raucous teen
comedies. The four heroes are members of a teen metal band called Mystery (the s is written in the same font as the letters of KISS, lest anyone mistake their source of inspiration). After the drummer's religiously zealous mother burns their tickets to a long-awaited concert in nearby Detroit, the boys go anyway and try to get tickets through theft, skullduggery, and entering a male stripper contest. The jokes are broad and the movie culminates in an orgy of male adolescent
wish-fulfillment, but here and there some loving attention is paid to the details of 1970s teenage life--the haircuts, clothes, and toys the filmmakers probably had when they were kids. Edward Furlong, as the band's singer, is his usual scruffy self and exudes his particular lopsided charm; the rest of the cast play their parts with similar high
spirits. Though Detroit Rock City was probably meant to be a no-holds-barred comedy in the vein of American Pie, the end result is curiously wistful; no one's going to mistake it for The Last Picture
Show, but something sincere and elegiac lurks in those bang-covered eyes
1997
Drama / Horror / Thriller
DTS
Taylor Hackford
Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Jeffrey Jones, Judith Ivey, Connie Nielsen, Craig T. Nelson, Tamara Tunie, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Debra Monk, Vyto Ruginis, Laura Harrington, Pamela Gray, Heather Matarazzo, George Wyner
144 min
Rated R for sexuality, nudity, violence and language.R
1982
Comedy / Drama
Mono
Barry Levinson
Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly, Ellen Barkin, Paul Reiser, Kathryn Dowling, Michael Tucker, Jessica James, Colette Blonigan, Kelle Kipp, John Aquino, Richard Pierson, Claudia Cron
110 min
R
5 guys in their 20's spend most of their time hanging out in a Diner. It's Christmas time in 1959, and the guys all begin to think it's about time they went about their lives without the comfort of the 'diner'.
2004
Comedy
Dolby Digital
Rawson Marshall Thurber
Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller, Rip Torn, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Joel Moore, Chris Williams, Alan Tudyk, Missi Pyle, Jamal Duff, Gary Cole, Jason Bateman, Hank Azaria, Al Kaplon
92 min
Rated PG-13 for rude and sexual humor, and language.PG-13
How's this for impressive trivia: Dodgeball faced off against The Terminal in opening-weekend competition, and 29-year-old writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber aced Steven Spielberg by a score of $30 to $18.7 in box-office millions. That's no mean feat for a newcomer, but Thurber's lowbrow script and rapid-fire direction--along with a sublime cast of screen comedians--proved to be just what moviegoers were ravenous for: a consistently hilarious, patently formulaic romp in which the underdog owner of Average Joe's Gym (Vince Vaughan) faces foreclosure unless he can raise $50,000 in 30 days. The
solution: A dodgeball tournament offering $50K to the winners, in which Vaughan and his nerdy clientele team up against the preening, abhorrently narcissistic owner (Ben Stiller) of Globo Gym, who's threatening a buy-out. That's it for story; any 5-year-old could follow it with brainpower to spare. But Thurber, Vaughan, Stiller, and their
well-cast costars (including Stiller's off-screen wife, Christine Taylor) keep the big laughs coming for 96 nonsensical minutes. With spot-on cameos by champion bicyclist Lance Armstrong, David Hasselhoff, Hank Azaria, Chuck Norris, and William Shatner, and a crudely amusing coda for those who watch past the credits, Dodgeball is no masterpiece, but you can bet Spielberg was unexpectedly humbled by its popular appeal
1999
Comedy / Fantasy / Adventure
DTS
Kevin Smith
Bud Cort, Barret Hackney, Jared Pfennigwerth, Kitao Sakurai, George Carlin, Betty Aberlin, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Dan Etheridge, Linda Fiorentino, Derek Milosavljevic, Lesley Braden, Marie Elena O'Brien, Brian O'Halloran, Janeane Garofalo
130 min
Rated R for strong language including sex-related dialogue, violence, crude humor and some drug content.R
The great grand niece of Jesus Christ is enlisted to prevent two angels from reentering Heaven and thus undoing the fabric of the universe. Along the way, she is aided by two prophets, Jay and Silent Bob. With the help of Rufus, the 13th Apostle, they must stop those who stand in their way and prevent the angels from entering Heaven.
2003
Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller
DTS
Lawrence Kasdan
Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg, Mikey Holekamp, Reece Thompson, Giacomo Baessato, Joel Palmer, Andrew Robb, Eric Keenleyside, Rosemary Dunsmore, Michael O'Neill
136 min / USA:134 min
Rated R for violence, gore and language.R
Four friends sruggling with life meet in the Maine woods for their annual hunting trip. When a stranger stumbles in to their camp disoriented mumbling things about lights in the sky the four friends put in a struggle with a psychotic army colonel and a being that has taken control of one of their minds.
1987
Romance / Drama / Music
DTS
Emile Ardolino
Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Jerry Orbach, Cynthia Rhodes, Jack Weston, Jane Brucker, Kelly Bishop, Lonny Price, Max Cantor, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Neal Jones, 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow, Wayne Knight, Paula Trueman, Alvin Myerovich
USA:100 min
PG-13
Baby is becoming a young woman in the summer where she meets Johnny Castle who teaches dance at a family Summer Camp and in his off hours Dirty Dances with the other dancers. She learns a routine so that one of the women can recover from an abortion and becomes Johnny's lover. As the summer winds down, Each must come to grips with responsibility and love and others' expectations.
2001
Thriller / Drama / Action / Crime / Mystery
DTS
Gary Fleder
Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Skye McCole Bartusiak, Guy Torry, Jennifer Esposito, Shawn Doyle, Victor Argo, Conrad Goode, Paul Schulze, Lance Reddick, Famke Janssen, Oliver Platt, Aidan Devine, Alex Campbell
113 min
Rated R for violence, including some gruesome images, and language.R
A group of thieves steal a rare gem, but in the process, two of the men double cross the leader of the thieving group, Patrick (Sean Bean), and take off with the precious stone. Ten years later, prominent psychiatrist Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) is invited to examine a disturbed young woman named Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy). Patrick immediately kidnaps Nathan's daughter, forcing Nathan to attempt to get Elisabeth to reveal a secret number which will ultimately lead Patrick to the whereabouts of the precious gem that has eluded him.
2003
Comedy
DTS
Troy Miller
Eric Christian Olsen, Derek Richardson, Rachel Nichols, Cheri Oteri, Luis Guzmán, Elden Henson, William Lee Scott, Mimi Rogers, Eugene Levy, Lin Shaye, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Braaten, Teal Redmann, Michelle Krusiec, Brian Posehn
USA:85 min
Rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor, and for language.PG-13
Set in 1986 when best friends Harry (Olsen) and Lloyd (Richardson) were teenagers, this is the madcap comic tale of their attempt to get out of the "special needs" department and into regular high school life.