This week's premiere
photo: Continental Film
Million Dollar Baby - Drama by Clint Eastwood. One of the great icons of American cinematic violence, Eastwood is getting thoughtful in his old age. And he's making what may be the best work of his career. After the subtle, dark, and complex Mystic River comes Million Dollar Baby, easily one of last year's best films and certainly worthy of its Best Picture win at the recent Academy Awards. Hilary Swank stars as Maggie Fitzgerald, an aspiring boxer with a great deal of heart but no money and less support. She doggedly pursues the boxing coach Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), who repeatedly tells her that he doesn't work with "girls". After Frankie's friend and employee Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman) takes a liking to the persistent Maggie, however, the stubborn coach takes on his first female student. But neither of them is prepared for where their relationship and success will take them.
Other movies playing
photo: ASFK
Lost in La Mancha(Stratený v La Mancha) - Documentary by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. After spending years trying to get funding for his screen adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's Don Quixote, Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam finally obtained the money and prepared to began filming in 2000. Excited about the project, which was to star Johnny Depp and French actor Jean Rochefort, Gilliam invited two filmmakers to document the production. What they instead captured was its unravelling: Certain cast members didn't show up, Rochefort badly injured his back, flash floods destroyed sets, and the financiers withdrew their funds. In addition to showing the movie's collapse, Lost in La Mancha features a few completed scenes and animated storyboards, currently all that exists of Gilliam's vision for the film.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle(Pofajčime, uvidíme) - Comedy by Danny Leiner. Though certainly an improvement over Leiner's previous movie (Dude, Where's My Car?), Harold and Kumar fails to capture the rebellious spirit of the best movies about excessive pot smoking. Instead, it's a tame, occasionally funny buddy movie about two friends on a quest for hamburgers that, like most things experienced after smoking a lot of marijuana, is easily forgotten once something else is put in front of you.
photo: Tatrafilm
Meet the Fockers (Jeho foter, to je lotor) - Comedy by Jay Roach. The director of the Austin Powers movies re-teams with Ben Stiller to make the sequel to 2000's mediocre Meet the Parents. Stiller stars as Greg Focker, a man who hopes to wed Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), daughter of the extremely strict and straight-laced Jack (Robert De Niro) and Dina (Blythe Danner). After spending all of Meet the Parents making an ass of himself, Greg has finally gotten Jack's and Dina's permission to marry their daughter. But the inevitable meeting of the parents proves problematic: Roz (Barbara Streisand) and Bernie Focker (Dustin Hoffman) are a bit more eccentric and open-minded than the Byrnes are used to... or likely to accept. Reportedly, this is much funnier than its predecessor.
Prepared by Jonathan Knapp
