MOVIES RELEASED AUSTRALIA APRIL 2002

 

  

Novocaine : opens at Melbourne Kino April 11, 2002. 

 

4 APRIL

Black Knight (M): National. Fox. 95 mins. Comedy. Martin Lawrence, Marsha Thomason, Tom Wilkinson, Vincent Regan, Daryl Mitchell, Mark Joy.  D: Gil Junger (10 Things I Hate About You). Martin Lawrence plays Jamal, an employee in Medieval World amusement park. After sustaining a blow to the head, he awakens to find himself in 14th century England.

Queen of The Damned (M): National. Roadshow. Horror. 101 mins. Stuart Townsend, Aaliah, Marguerite Moreau, Lena Olin.  D: Michael Rhymer (Angel Baby). Based on the Anne Rice book, this was rumoured to be going straight to video for a while there.  Thankfully its not, because this flick should have at least a few things going for it.  Aaliah died last year.. this is going to be somewhat one of her last projects.  This is a movie with bite! Sorry. 

Van Wilder: Party Liaison (MA): National. Melbourne: 8th. Hoyts Distribution. 92 mins. Comedy. D: Walt Becker (Buying The Cow). Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Kal Penn, Kim Smith, Tim Matheson, Tom Everret Scott. Although the movie is nothing new, it hits all the stops of the usual college movie - the frats, the parties, the sex, and all the hijinx that could possibly ensue. Van Wilder is definitely the big man on campus. If Ferris Buller was at college for 7 years and had the comic timing of Ryan Reynolds, well, he'd know just how it feels to be as cool.

 

 

11 APRIL

Novocaine (MA): Selected, Melb Kino. Fox. Comedy. 94 mins.  Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, Kevin Bacon, Laura Dern, Elias Koteas, Scott Caan, Keith David.  D: David Atkins (debut). A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy patient seduces him into prescribing her drugs. 

The Panic Room (MA): National. Columbia. Thriller.  112 mins. Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Kristin Stewart. D: David (Fight Club) Fincher.  A woman (Foster) hides with her daughter in a secret room in her New York mansion when thieves break in and ransack the place.  Expect extended scenes with not much talking, and lots of tension, then. 

Time Machine (M): National. UIP. Sci-fi action. 96 mins. Guy Pearce, Samantha Mumba, Jeremy Irons, Mark Addy, Philip Bosco.  D: Simon Wells (The Prince of Egypt), Gore Verbinski (The Mexican, directed the last 18 days). Based on the classic sci-fi novel by H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine" stars Guy Pearce in the role of scientist and inventor, Alexander Hartdegen, who is determined to prove that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation by a personal tragedy that now drives him to want to change the past.

  

18 APRIL

Crossroads (M): National. Roadshow. Comedy. 93 mins. Brittany Spears, Zoe Salanda, Anson Mount, Taryn Manning, Justin Long, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall. D: Tamra Davis (Half Baked).  Three high school girls, from a small Georgia town, who used to be best friends when they were younger, but now have very different personalities (a cheerleader, a straight-A student and a "burnout", whatever that means) (Spears plays the smart one) get together for a trip across the country. Along the way, they meet a musician who persuades them to go to Los Angeles to compete in a musical contest. Blah! 

Dark Blue World (M): Selected. Columbia. Drama. Czech Republic. Subtitled.  Ondrej Vetchý, Krystof Hádek, Tara Fitzgerald, Charles Dance, Oldrich Kaiser, David Novotny, Linda Rybová. D: Jan Sverak (Kolya).  After former fighter pilot Franta Sláma (Ondrej Vetch) keels over from pneumonia, the commandant of the Communist-run forced-labour camp he's been imprisoned in has no choice but to send him to the infirmary, where he spends a long time convalescing and swapping war stories with a dour former SS doctor--who, surprisingly, turns out to have a ready store of wit and humanity (Hans Jorg Assman).

The Scorpion King (M): National. Fantasy/Action. UIP. 91 mins. The Rock, Michael Clarke Duncan, Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, Peter Facinelli, Ralph Moeller. D: Chuck Russell (Bless The Child).  Prequel to The Mummy movies. Unless something amazing happens, this series is going to have none too many further instalments.  Special effects alone does not make a good movie.  That said you'll all probably line up and empty your wallets to see it.  

Va Savoir (PG): Selected, Melb/ Syd.  Palace. Comedy/ Romance. 154 mins. Subtitled. Jeanne Baliber, Sergio Castellito, Marianne Basler, Claude Berry, Bettina Kee. (aka Go Figure/ Who Knows?). D: Jacques Rivette (Secret Defence). Quick-witted, well-read cultured types revolve around each other in a delightful potpourri of theatre, romanticism and theft.

 

21 APRIL 

Exodus (PG, 1955): Selected, Melbourne. New restored print. 

 

 

25 APRIL (ANZAC DAY)

Baise- Moi (R): Selected- Sydney Valhala, Melb Lumiere. May 2- Adel/ Perth.  Potential. 77 mins. Adult/ Thriller. Raffaëla Anderson, Karen Lancaume, Delphine MacCarty, Lisa Marshall, Estelle Isaac, Hervé P. Gustave, Marc Rioufol, Ouassini Embarek, Adama Niane, Tewfik Saad. D: Coralie (debut); Virginie Desentes (debut). Two young women, marginalised (and for one of them, raped) by society, go on a destructive tour of sex and violence. Breaking norms and killing men - and shattering the complacency of polite cinema audiences.

The Diaries Of Vaslav Nijinsky (M): Selected. Sharmil. Australia. 95 mins. Derek Jacobi (voice of Nijinsky). D: Paul Cox (Innocence). Dramatised documentary based on the works and notebooks of the one of the greatest dancers of all time. 

Forty Days and Forty Nights (M): National. Drama/ Comedy. UIP. 95 mins. Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dylan Neal. D: Michael Lehmann (Truth About Cats & Dogs). A young man (Hartnett) breaks up with his girlfriend (Sossamon) and then tests himself by swearing off physical contact with girls for the 40 days of Lent, while his ex schemes to seduce him back into her life, breaking his vow.  And of course all his friends put bets on how long he'll last and manipulate him too.  Watch out for "hilarious" viagra/ boner scenes.  

Joe Somebody (PG): National. Fox. 98 mins. Tim Allen, James Belushi, Greg Germann, Kelly Lynch, Julie Bowen, Patrick Warburton, Hayden Panettiere. D: John Pasquin (Jungle 2 Jungle).  When Joe is beat up by a co-worker in front of his daughter on "Bring Your Child To Work Day", he decides to fight back.

The Last Kiss (M): Selected, Syd, Melb.  115 mins. Palace. Comedy. Italy. Subtitled.  Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Marco Cocci.  D: Gabriele Muccino (That's It). Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) comes from a bourgeois milieu, yet when she knows about her husband's fling with a teenager, she goes into a fit of rage and threatens him with a knife. Anna's (Stefania Sandrelli) husband is a psychotherapist, yet he fails to understand his wife's crisis.

No Man's Land (MA): Selected. Drama. Rialto. 98 mins. Branko Djuric. Rene Bitorajac. D: Danis Tanovic (Budenje). Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1993 at the time of the heaviest fighting between the two warring sides. The two Bosnian soldiers, Niki and Chiki, wander into the no man's land and become the victims of bombing.

Resident Evil (MA): National. Buena Vista. Action/ horror. 102 mins. Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius , James Purefoy, Martin Crewes and Colin Salmon. Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon), the action horror thriller Resident Evil is based on the best-selling Capcom videogame series.  

We Were Soldiers (MA): National. Icon. War. 139 mins. Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Chris Klein, Sam Elliot.  D: Randall Wallace (Man In The Iron Mask). In a place soon to be known as The Valley of Death, in a small clearing called landing zone X-Ray, Lt. Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) and 400 young fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, all troopers from an elite American combat division, were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. The ensuing battle was one of the most savage in U.S. history.