MARCH 2002 RELEASES IN AUSTRALIA

 

Monsters Ball : opens March 28, 2002. 

 

7 MARCH

All Over The Guy (M): Selected, Sydney.  Wider, April 18. Niche/ Maverick Films. Drama. 95 m.  Dan Ducamtinsky, Adam Goldberg, Christina Ricci, Lisa Kudrow. D: Julie Davis. Two guys go on a date and fall in love.  

A Beautiful Mind (M) National. Previews 28th Feb. UIP. Drama. Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany. D: Ron Howard (Apollo 13). This is a story of brilliant mathematician who learns about a tobacco conspiracy so he has to fight to the death as a gladiator in a arena.. No really its based on a true story of a schizophrenic who "recovers" and suceeds in mathematics.  1+1= ?.  

The Circle (PG): Selected. New Vision. Previews 28th Feb. Drama.  90 mins. Subtitled. Nargess Marrizadeh, Majiam Palvn Almani. aka Dayereh (2000). D: Jafar Panahi (Kish).  Iran/ Italy. This film is about women and their place in nowadays Iran. As very vividly is pictured in the movie, their fate is sad and we all should be alarmed about it, Iran (where the movie has banned). 

The Musketeer (M): National. Becker. Action.  105 mins. Catherine Deneuve, Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Tim Roth, Justin Chambers.  D: Peter Hymans. Choeography by Xin-Xin Xiong.  Alexander Dumas' novel is updated with an eastern influence as D'Artagnan attempts to join the king's elite guards, the Royal Musketeers, and find the man who killed his parents.

New Skin (MA): Selected. Rouge Star Productions. Drama. Australia. 57 Mins. Valhalla cinema.  Plays 7th, then 10th - 14th. Jessica Napier, Marshall Napier, Sam Worthington, Sam Johnston.  D: Anthony Hayes. A story of youthful love, with the lack of money, abuse of drugs and pregnancy that goes with it.  Playing with short The Hitch.    

Rollerball (M): National. Columbia. Sci-fi action.  Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Delayed from 2001 due to horrendous NYC test screening results where just about everything went wrong, can director John McTeirnen and MGM salvage this disaster?

Waking Life (M): Selected. Fox. Drama. 97 mins.  Better than Sleeping Dead I suppose..  A man (Wiley Wiggins) walks through what may be a dream, flowing in and out of scenarios and encounters with strange characters. Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Nicky Katt, Peter Atherton, Steve Brudniak, John Christensen, Charles Gunning, Timothy "Speed" Levitch, Louis Mackey, Steven Prince, Steven Soderbergh and Ken Webster. Written & Directed by Richard Linklater. 

 

Waking Life : opens March 7, 2002. (Arty or artastic? You decide. Or not.)

  

14 MARCH

Bubble Boy (M): Selected. (Astor March 17-23). Buena Vista. 84 mins. Comedy. Jake Gyllenhaal, Swoosie Kurtz, Marley Shelton, Danny Trejo. D: Blair Haynes. About a boy who was born without an immune system who must live his life in plastic bubble. After he finds out his life's love is about to marry, he builds a portable bubble suit and goes on a mission to win her over. 

Gosford Park (M): Selected. Icon. Drama. 137 mins. Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Helen Mirren, Ryan Phillippe, Joely Richardson, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Watson. Directed by Robert Altman. Multiple storylines drama set in 1930, showing the lives of upstairs guest and downstairs servants at a party in a country house in England.

Kate And Leopold (PG): National. Buena Vista. Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Breckin Myer, Natasha Lyonne, Bradley Whitford.. D: James Mangold (Copland).  121 mins. Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) is an on-the-go executive at a marketing agency who is trying to get over the loss of her relationship with Stuart (Liev Schreiber). What Kate doesn't know is that Stuart has discovered a portal in time in which he can go back and spy on his ancestors. During one such journey, Stuart accidentally brings back a Duke named Leopold (Hugh Jackman) from the year 1876. "If they lived in the same century they'd be perfect for each other". 

Royal Tenenbaums (MA): National.  28 March opens wider:- BCC/ GU.  Comedy. Buena Vista. 109 mins. Owen Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Gene Hackman, Danny Glover. Filmmakers: Director: Wes Anderson, Writers: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Etheline, had three brilliant kids before separating: Chas had a preternatural instinct for real estate, Margot was an award-winning playwright by ninth grade, and Richie was a junior champion tennis player. But despite these promising beginnings, the family fell apart after decades of lies, betrayals, and failures. What happens when Royal, whom the kids haven't spoken to in years, brings the family back together suddenly and announces that he's got only six weeks to live? Well, old wounds don't heal so quickly.

Super Troopers (M): Selected. Fox. Comedy. 103 mins. Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Brian Cox, Paul Soter.  D: Jay Chandrasekhar (Puddle Cruiser). Silly comedy about bored cops that have nothing better to do than muck around.  

 

 

21 MARCH

Alien Adventure (PG): Selected, Melbourne Imax. Sci fi. Alien Adventure: A band of aliens that travels the galaxy looking for planets to conquer discovers a small blue green planet that they think will be perfect for their newest base. However, when their scouting party lands in a soon to be opened virtual theme park the begin to have second thoughts.

Bandits (M) National. Fox. Comedy. 122 mins.  Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, Cate Blanchett, Troy Garity, January Jones.  Directed by Barry Levinson. They are bandits, and they are silly no doubt. Wacky comedy about the adventures of the most successful bandits in history.. and their hostage (Blanchett), who they fall for.

Calle 54 (G): Selected, Melb/ Perth.  April 11: Syd.  Documentary/ Musical. Dendy. Spain/ France/ Italy. Subtitled: French/ Spanish/ English. 105 mins. Gato Barieri, Cachao.  D: Fernando Treuba (Two Much). Fernando Trueba presents his love affair with Latin jazz, his camera following 13 giants into the studio. Trueba drapes walls with single colors - red for Jerry González and the Fort Apache band, white for Tito Puente; his camera is close to faces, instruments, hands, and feet; bands' colors contrast with walls or their leader's clothes.

China: The Panda Adventure (PG): Selected. IMAX. Sydney.  1936, China. Ruth Harkness has come to settle the affairs of her husband, Bill, who died while observing the rare and unstudied panda bear. His journal describes the panda as shy and docile, while great white hunter Dak Johnson describes them as ferocious beasts. This intrigues her, and she sets off to retrace Bill's steps and save the pandas from Johnson.

Ice Age (PG): National. Fox. Animation. Voices: Denis Leary, Kirsten Johnson, Jack Black, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Jane Krakowski. Set during the Ice Age, a sabertooth tiger, a sloth, and a woolly mammoth find a lost human infant, and they try to return him to his tribe.

Not Another Teen Movie (MA): National. Columbia. Comedy. Lacey Chabert, Chris Evans, Ron Lester, Samm Levine, Randy Quaid, Riley Smith. Spoof of recent teen movies, this one takes on everything since Grease.  (It has Mr T & Molly Ringwald in it, but no jokes). 

The Sons Room (M):  Selected. Dendy. (Stanza de figlio, la). Drama. 99 mins. France/ Italy. Subtitled: Italian. D: Nanni Moretti (Aprile).  Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca, Silvio Orlando. "The son's room is at the bottom of the sea, on the surface of an instant photo, a secret path though many a different door... Press replay on what is not past nor future but pure emotion of imagining what will never be, love streams, the loneliness of long distant runner..."

 

  

28 MARCH

Behind The Sun (M): Selected. Buena Vista. 92 mins. Subtitled. Drama. Jose Dermont, Rodrico Santoro. "Behind the Sun" is a film by Walter Salles (Central Station) set in Brazil in the early 1900's.  When ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother, a young man questions the tradition of violence between two rival families. 

The Curse of The Jaid Scorpian (G): Selected. Comedy. Roadshow. 101 mins. Woody Allen, Hellen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Berkley, Charlize Theron, Wallace Shawn. CW Briggs is the top insurance investigator in 1940s New York. Well, that's what he keeps telling the top efficiency expert, Betty Ann "Fitz" Fitzgerald. Briggs prides himself on being able to crack any insurance caper by getting into the mind of the thief, but the hypnotic powers of the Jade Scorpion gets the mind of the thief into Briggs...

E.T The Extra Terrestrial *re-release* (PG): National. UIP. Sci-fi. 118 mins. Dee Wallace-Stone, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote. A group of aliens visit earth and one of them is lost and left behind stranded on this planet. The alien is found by a 10 year old boy, Elliot. Soon the two begin to communicate, and start a different kind of friendship in which E.T learns about life on earth and Elliot learns about some new values for the true meaning of friendship. E.T. wants to go home, but if Elliot helps him, he'll lose a friend... 

Jimmy Neuton: Boy Genius (G): National (March 28 Vic/Qld, Syd/ Adel/ Perth April 11). UIP. 82 mins.  Animation. Voices: Martin Short, Patrick Stewart. Nickelodeon movie, is there a TV show? We don't know, as I am far beyond the viewing age, and don't watch four hours of kids TV each day.  Just three.  Jimmy Neutron is a boy genius and way ahead of his friends, but when it comes to being cool, he's a little behind. All until one day when his parents, and parents all over Earth are kidnapped by aliens, it's up to him to lead all the children of the world to rescue their parents.

Kandahar (PG): Selected, Sydney/ Melb. Sneaks 23/24. Potential. 81 mins. Iran/ France. D: MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF. A fiction/documentary hybrid, charting a woman's perilous journey through Afghanistan to find her sister.

Monster's Ball (R): National. Hoyts. Previews 15-17, 22-24. Drama. 111 mins. Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Heath Ledger, Peter Boyle, Sean Combs, Mos Def.  Set in the Southern United States, 'Monster's Ball' is a tale of a racist white man, Hank (played by Billy Bob Thornton), who falls in love with a black woman named Leticia (Halle Berry). Ironically Hank is a prison guard working on Death Row who executed Leticia's husband (Sean Combs). Hank and Leticia's interracial affair leads to confusion and new ideas for the two unlikely lovers.

Return To Never Land (G): National, staggered. March 28 Melb & VIC / Brisbane & Qld.  April 11 NSW, SA.  18 April WA.  Buena Vista. 73 mins. Animated. Blanye Weaver, Harriet Owen, Dan Castellaneta. Peter Pan sequel. I wonder what delights this sequel has in store for us?  Disney better come up with more original stuff soon, or their fading stocks will fall even more.  In London during World War II, this is the story of Wendy's daughter, Jane, who is kidnapped by Captain Hook and Peter Pan must come to the rescue.

Showtime (M): National. Roadshow. Action- Comedy. 95 mins. Robert De Nero, Eddie Murphy, Renee Russo, William Shatner,   D: Tom Dey (Shanghai Noon). This spoof of buddy cop movies is about two very different police officers who are forced to work together, as stars of a new reality-based TV show a major city's police department hopes will boost their publicity, morale, and image in general. The two detectives are a straight-laced, no-nonsense Robert De Niro-type (De Niro) and a showboating, outlandish rookie with all the attitude of Eddie Murphy (Murphy).

Sorority Boys (M): National. Buena Vista. 94 mins. Comedy. Barry Watson, Harland Williams, Micheal Rosenbaum, Melissa Sagemiller, Heather Matarazzo. D: Wally Wolodarsky.  Cross dressing "comedy" fun. With a little make-up, a little pantyhose, and lots of "pluck," Dave, Adam
and Doofer go undercover in the sorority house as Daisy, Adina, and Roberta.  Everything goes according to plan. until Dave falls for Leah (Sagemiller), the alpha D.O.G.  What's a boy (pretending to be a girl) to do?

 

31 MARCH

Metropolis (PG, 2001): Selected, Astor, St Kilda.  March 31- April 13. Columbia Tristar. 108 mins. Animated. Japan. D: Rintaro (X). In a future city called Metropolis a celebration is occurring. A celebration of the Zigguraut. A huge building that will hold the leader of the world. As the celebrations are occurring a private eye and his nephew Kenichi are trying to find a man named Dr. Laughton. Dr. Laughton is working on a robitic simulation of Duke Red's dead daughter Tima.