FEBRUARY 2003 CINEMA RELEASES IN AUSTRALIA

 

FEBRUARY 6

About Schmidt (M): Selected, 46 screens : Can/Syd /Bris /Adel /Melb /Perth. Roadshow. Comedy. 124 mins. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, June Squibb, Kathy Bates, Howard Hesseman.  D: Alexander Payne (Election). Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) has arrived at several of life's crossroads all at the same time. To begin with, he is retiring from a lifetime of service as an actuary for Woodmen of the World Insurance Company, and he feels utterly adrift. Furthermore, his only daughter Jeannie (Davis) is about to marry a boob. And his wife Helen (Squibb) dies suddenly after 42 years of marriage. With no job, no wife, and no family, Warren is desperate to find something meaningful in his thoroughly unimpressive life. (Previews weekend of 23rd Jan and 30th Jan). 

Biggie & Tupac (M): Selected, 4 screens- Syd / Melb. Imagine Entertainment. 108 mins. Documentary. Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Marion 'Suge' Knight, Russell Poole, Voletta Wallace.  D: Nick Broomfield (Monster In A Box).   "Biggie and Tupac" is a controversial documentary examining the lives and murders of the two rappers. The film looks at the former friendship of the two artists and the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry that followed. The documentary also explores possible police corruption and investigation cover-ups

 

 

City By The Sea (MA): Selected, 60 screens- Syd /Brisb/Adel /Melb/ Perth. Roadshow.  108 mins. Robert DeNiro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, George Dzundza. D: Michael Caton-Jones (The Jackal).  City by the Sea tells the story of New York City police detective Vincent LaMarca (Robert DeNiro), whose father, a convicted murderer was executed when Vincent was a boy. Now a homicide detective with many years of service under his belt, Vincent begins investigating the murder of a drug dealer. In order to solve the crime Vincent finds himself returning to his home town-the self proclaimed-“city by the sea”-to look for clues. 

 

 
Far From Heaven (M): Selected, 61 screens- Can/ Bris /Adel /Melb /Perth. Icon. Drama. 107 mins. Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis, James Rebhorn, Bette Henritze, Michael Gaston, Ryan Ward, Lindsay Andretta, Jordan Puryear. D: Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine). Cathy (Julianne Moore) is the perfect 50s housewife, living the perfect 50s life: healthy kids, successful husband and social prominence. Then one night she discovers her husband Frank’s (Dennis Quaid) infidelity and her tidy world starts spinning out of control. In her confusion and grief, she finds consolation in the friendship of their African-American gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) - a socially taboo relationship that leads to the further disintegration of life as she knew it.
Fear Dot Com (MA): Selected 25 screeens- Syd /Bris /Adel /Melb /Perth. Columbia. Thriller. 101 mins. Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone, Stephen Rea, Udo Kier, Amelia Shankley, Jeffrey Combs, Nigel Terry, Gesine Cukrowski. D: William Malone (The House on Haunted Hill (1999)). Four bodies are found in New York City. Why, why, why? The coincidence? They all died 48 hours after logging on to a site named feardotcom.com. Tough detective Mike Reilly collaborates with Department of Health associate Terry Huston to research these mysterious deaths. The only way to find out though what really happened is to enter the site itself...

Khushi (M): Selected, 2- Melb/ Syd. (Opens Feb 7 Syd, Feb 8 Melb). Syd World Cinemas, Melb Forum Theatre. MG Entertainment. Romance. India. Subtitled:- Hindu.  Fardeen Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Amrish Puri, Naveen Nischoli, Jhonny Lever, Sharad Saxena. D:  S.J. Suryah ( Karan, born in Calcutta, and Khushi, born in the small village of Chamoli, are destined to meet despite the distance between the two. Karan wants to go Canada to further her studies--but due to an accident that takes place, he is forced to continue his studies in Mumbai University. Khushi's father believes that for a girl the education that she has receives is enough and now she should stay with him and marry a boy who is ready to be his son-in-law.
Star Trek: Nemesis (M): National, 177 screens. UIP. Sci-fi. 116 mins.  Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Tom Hardy, Gates McFadden. D: Stuart Baird (US Marshals). On their way to celebrate the wedding of First officer Will Riker (Frakes) and Counsellor Deanna Troi (Sirtis), Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) and the Enterprise crew are suddenly diverted for an unexpected diplomatic mission to the planet Romulus. 

 

They (M): Selected, 76 screens- Syd /Bris /Adel /Melb /Perth. Roadshow. Horror. 90 mins. Laura Regan, Marc Blucas, Ethan Embry,  Dagmara Dominczyk, Jon Abrahams, Jessica Amlee, Jonathan Cherry. D: Robert Harmon (The Hitcher). After witnessing a horrific and traumatic event, Julia Lund (Laura Regan), a graduate student in psychology, gradually comes to the realization that everything which scared her as a child could be real. And what's worse, it might be coming back to get her...

 

 

FEBRUARY 13

Cat And Mouse (PG): Selected. 1 cinema:- Sydney: Reading Market City, Haymarket. Yu Enterprises. 99 mins. Comedy. Subtitled. Andy Lau, Cecilia Cheung. D: Gordon Chan.  A new Chinese New Year period comedy from Hong Kong. In the days of the Imperial Palace in China, Jin Chiu (aka "the Imperial Cat") is constantly at loggerheads with the master criminal Bak Yak Tong (aka "the Multicolored Mouse"). However, Bak has a secret that Jin has yet to discover... he is a she! 
Gangs Of New York (MA): National, 269 screens. Columbia. 160 mins. Crime / Drama. Leonardo Di Caprio, Daniel Day Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C Reilly, Henry Thomas, Brandon Gleeson, Roger Aston-Griffiths, Liam Neeson. D: Martin Scorsese (Casino). Set in violent 1950's New York as conflicts escalate between Anglo-Saxon natives and Italian immigrants during which a boy must avenge the death of his father.  Lots is expected from this one, although take a pillow- its sure to be a long haul.  

Kaante (MA): Selected, Syd / Melb. Black Cat Productions. Crime drama. 165 mins. India. Subtitled:- Hindu. Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Kumar Gaurav, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lucky Ali, Isha Koppikar, Malaika Arora Khan. D: Sanjay Gupta (Jung). A mastermind criminal assembles a group of six perfect strangers to pull off a major bank robbery, but unknown to the crooks; one of the people on their team is an undercover cop, preparing to turn them in to the authorities. 

 

 
Mean Streets (R): Selected, 1 screen. Sydney Chauvel Paddington. Chapel Films.  Drama. 103 mins. Re-release of the 1973 classic. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova, George Memmoli, Robert Carradine, David Carradine. D: Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull). A young hood in New York's Little Italy contends with saving the neck of his hotheaded best friend from the local loan shark and struggles with the religious guilt prompted by his lifestyle.

The Moneyshot (R): Selected, Sydney from Feb 20. Tomahawk Productions.  Screening info: Feb 13:- Bris. Feb 27:- Canb/ Melb/ Adel. Screened for a short while from July 24, 2002 under the name of The Venus Factory . 83 mins. Australia. Comedy. Aka The Venus Factory (1998), Starring Duncan Wiley. Jenny Apostolou, Marie-Claire Aston, Melissa Bell (III), Susie Benton (II), Tony Bonner, Robert Carlton, Jodie Dry, Alan Flower, Teo Gebert, Erick Mitsak. D: unaccredited (Glenn Fraser (Boy)). This tale of the porn industry, telling of one rising star and his naked ambition. Ambition Gets Naked. Filmed before Boogie Nights (!!!). 

 

Simone (PG): Selected, Can/ Syd/ Bris/ Adel/ Melb/ Perth, 40 screens. Roadshow. 117 mins. Comedy. Al Pacino, Chris Coppola, Catherine Keener, Jay Mohr, Jason Schwartzman, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Evan Rachel Wood, Stanley Anderson.  D: Andrew Niccol (Gattaca). The career of a disillusioned producer, who is desperate for a hit, is endangered when his star walks off the film set. Forced to think fast, the producer decides to digitally create an actress "Simone" to sub for the star--the first totally believable synthetic actress. The "actress" becomes an overnight sensation, with a major singing career as well, and everyone thinks she's a real person. However, as Simone's fame skyrockets, he cannot bear to admit his fraud to himself or the world.

 

SOS Planet (G): Selected, Syd/ Melb.  Imax. Doco.  D: Ben Stassen (Haunted Castle). SOS PLANET is a groundbreaking LF documentary that raises some of the crucial environmental issues of our time while taking a serious look at the role of the mass media in the campaign to protect our planet from slow but seemingly unavoidable destruction.  (Save the planet! Or at least your money!) 

 

Talk To Her (MA): Selected, 14 screens. Syd/ Bris/ Melb/ Perth. Fox. Drama. 116 mins. Subtitled- Spanish. Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Rosario Flores, Leonor Watling,  Katerina Bilova,  Mariola Fuentes, Fele Martínez. D: Pedro Almodovar (Kika). An intimate and baroque film dealing with communication and the solitude of couples. The curtain of salmon colored roses and heavy gold fringing which covers the stage is pulled back to reveal a Pina Bausch spectacle, Cafi M|ller. Among the spectators, two men are sitting together by chance. They don't know each other. 

 

 

Undercover Brother (M): National, 113 screens. 86 mins. UIP. Comedy. Eddie Griffin, Denise Richards, Chris Kattan, David Chappelle, Aunjanue Ellis, Judi Embden, Neil Patrick Harris, Chi McBride, Gary Anthony Williams. D: Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man). A live-action comedy based on Urban Media’s popular websites series. Blasted from the past and ready to take care of business, Undercover Brother (Griffin) is recruited to infiltrate a sinister underground movement headed by The Man. Partnered with the sassy, stunning Sistah Girl (Ellis), our hero must first undergo the ultimate attitude adjustment and trade in his ‘fro and platforms for tennis sweaters and penny loafers. 

 

FEBRUARY 20  

Half Past Dead (M): National, 106 screens. Columbia. Action. 98 mins. Steven Seagal, Morris Chestnut, Ja Rule, Kurupt, Nia Peeples, Claudia Christian, Tony Plana, Bruce Weitz. D: Don Michael Paul (debut). Criminal mastermind Donny/49er #1 (Chestnut) has set in motion a plan to infiltrate a high tech prison in order to persuade a death row inmate to reveal the whereabouts of $200 million worth of gold. Undercover FBI agent Sascha (Seagal) must stop him before it’s too late. 

The Hours (M): National, 110 screens. Buena Vista. Drama. 115 mins. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Allison Janney. D:  Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot).  Based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Hours draws on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of three women: Woolf, who is portrayed in the throes of writing Mrs. Dalloway and contemplating suicide; Laura Brown, a young wife and mother in the suffocating confines of her tidy little life in Los Angeles in 1949.  (Working title: Worthy Multigenerational Oscar-Magnet Script #2423). 

 

Just Married (PG): National, 230 screens. Fox. Previews 13th Feb. Comedy. Ashton Kutcher, Brittany Murphy, Christian Kane, Taran Killam, Monet Mazur, Joe Vassallo.  D: Shawn Levy (Big Fat Liar). A happy young couple, Sarah and Tom (Murphy and Kutcher) marry against the wishes of Sarah's friends and family and go to Europe for their Honeymoon. Unfortunately for them, Sarah's parents send Sarah's ex-boyfriend Peter Prentis (Kane) to break up the happy marriage. (Working title: wacky inoffensive comedy #2422). 

 

The Rules Of Attraction (R): Selected, 54 screens. Syd/ Adel/ Perth. Icon. Thriller. James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Jessica Biel, Kip Pardue, Ian Somerhalder. D: Roger Avery (Killing Zoe). Based on novel by Bret Easton Ellis, "Rules," centres around Partrick Bateman's younger brother and his college friends bizarre mating rituals that mix sex, drugs, music and mayhem in a kaleidoscopic story about three students entangled in a curiously surreal romantic triangle. (The rules of adapting a cult novel and marketing it).  

 

 

Trapped (M): National, 93 screens. Roadshow. Thriller. 106 mins. Stuart Townsend, Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, Gregory Bennett, Dakota Fanning, Pruitt Taylor Vince. D: Luis Mandoki (Angel Eyes). Joe Hickley thinks he's got a great scheme: kidnap the child of rich parents, hold it for 24 hours, keeping the mother under his control while an accomplice gets the ransom from the father, who is on a trip. But things go very wrong when he tries this scheme on the Jennings family, in part because their daughter Abby is asthmatic, and in part because the Jennings' find out more than Hickley wants them to know.

 

 

 

FEBRUARY 27   
Jackass: The Movie (MA): National, 171. UIP. Comedy. 85 mins. Johnny Knoxville, Ryan Dunn, Bam Margera, Steve O. D: Jeff Tremaine (debut). Johnny Knoxville and his band of maniacs perform a variety of stunts and gross-out gags on the big screen for the first time. The movie starts off with a hilarious opening shot set to grand classical music. Amidst a mass of smoke emerges an enormous grocery store shopping cart, big enough to hold virtually the entire cast. 

The Kid Stays In The Picture (M): Selected, Syd / Melb. Rialto. 4 screens. Sydney: Chauvel, Valhalla.  Melbourne: Lumiere, Classic.  Documentary. 91 mins. Robert Evans (Narrator). D: Nanette Burstein (On The Ropes), Brett Morgan (Ollie's Army). This documentary captures the life story of legendary Hollywood producer and studio chief Robert Evans. The first actor to ever to run a film studio, Robert Evans' film career started in 1956, poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel. His good looks, charm and overwhelming confidence captured the eye of screen legend Norma Shearer, who offered him a film role. After a glamorous--but short-lived--career as a movie star, Evans tried out producing. At the age of 34, with no producing credits to his name, he landed a job as chief of production at Paramount Pictures.

My Lucky Star (PG): Selected, 2 screens. Syd/ Melb. Yu Enterprises. Melb: Chinatown Cinema. Syd: Reading Market City. D: Vincent Kok. 99 mins. In Cantonese, with Chinese and English subtitles. A new Hong Kong comedy with added Feng Shui! Yip (Miriam Yeung) is attractive but for some strange reason, no man has ever been interested in her. She meets Lai (Tony Leung from In the Mood For Love), a famous feng shui expert... maybe he can change her luck? 
The Recruit (M): National, 148 screens. Buena Vista. Thriller. 115 mins. Colin Farell, Al Pacino, Bridget Moynahan, Gabriel Macht, Brian Rhodes, Kenneth Mitchell, Clayne Crawford, Aaron Michael Lacey, Jenny Levine.  D: Roger Donaldson (Thirteen Days). A young CIA operative who is training at "the Farm", a secret facility in Virginia where the brightest and best are groomed to work in China.  James quickly rises through the ranks and falls for Layla (Moynahan), one of his fellow recruits. But just when James starts to question his role and decides to "wash out", Burke (Pacino)  taps him for a special assignment to root out a mole. Farrell's character suspects that his mentor and other instructors may be double-agents for the Chinese government. 
Serving Sara (PG): Selected, Syd/ Brisb/ Melb/ Adel/ Perth. 40 screens. Roadshow. Comedy. 99 mins. Elizabeth Hurley, Matthew Perry, Bruce Campbell, Cedric the Entertainer, Vincent Pastore D: Reginald Hudlin (The Ladies Man). When Sara (Elizabeth Hurley) is served divorce papers while she is in New York, she is stunned. Not about to lose the fortune she amassed with her self-serving Texas husband, she makes an offer to her process server, Joe (Matthew Perry) that sets them off on a wild trip across the country.
Solaris (M): Selected, 30 screens. Fox. Syd/ Brisb/ Adel/ Melb/ Perth.  Sci-fi. George Clooney, Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis, Natasha McElhone.  D: Steven Soderergh (Sex Lies and Videotape). Solaris centres on a psychologist named Dr. Chris Kelvin (Clooney) sent to investigate unexplained behaviour of key scientists on the space station Prometheus orbiting the planet Solaris. Once aboard he finds his good friend Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur) has committed suicide and the remaining scientists are exhibiting signs of insanity. Soon Kelvin, too, falls victim to this unique world's mysteries - as well as an erotic obsession with someone he thought he had left behind.  
 

Swimming Upstream (M): National, 88 screens. Hoyts. Drama. 101 mins. Australia. It had a small release back in Oct 31 2002 for qualification for the 2002 AFI awards, this being the first "proper" release. Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jesse Spencer, Tim Draxl, David Hoflin, Craig Horner, Brittany Byrnes, Deborah Kennedy (I), Mark Hembrow, Mitchell Dellevergin, Thomas Davidson. D: Russel Mulcahy (Resurrection). The true story of Tony Fingleton, a young man from a troubled family who found the inner strength to become a champion. Always overshadowed in his father's eyes by his brothers, it is only when Tony displays an extraordinary swimming talent that he feels he has a shot at winning his father's heart.