This week's premiere
photo: Tatrafilm
The Ring 2 (Kruh 2) - Horror by Hideo Nakata. Gore Verbinski's The Ring was easily one of the most successful horror movies of recent years, so of course there would be a sequel. This time out Hideo Nakata, the director of the original Japanese series that inspired the Hollywood remake, takes the reins from Verbinski (who has since gone on to make Pirates of the Caribbean). Naomi Watts returns as Rachel, who hopes she and her son can move past the horror of the first movie by relocating to a small town in Oregon. But after hearing about a grisly murder involving a mysterious videotape, Rachel begins to worry that she and her son have not escaped after all. So, naturally, she investigates.
photo: Saturn Entertainment
The Pacifier (Cumlikátor) - Comedy by Adam Shankman. Because Arnold Schwarzenegger was too busy governing California to make Kindergarten Cop 2, Disney opted for the next best thing: Vin Diesel as a tough military man assigned to babysit four children. Well, sort of: Diesel plays Shane Wolf, a former Navy SEAL who must protect a top-secret defence project, which just happens to be in a home with four wacky kids.
Other movies playing
Constantine - Francis Lawrence. Remember The Matrix? Well, the creators of Constantine sure do - and they're hoping that you do too. And that you'll want more of it, or at least more of Keanu Reeves as a mystical visionary dressed in black. He plays the titular character, a man who has the misfortune of seeing all the spirits that surround us. After being saved from suicide, Constantine must act as a guardian for those passing between Paradise and Hell. While doing so he discovers that he and a police detective (Rachel Weisz) must save the world from evil. Tilda Swinton, Peter Stormare, and Gavin Rossdale (aka Mr Gwen Stefani) also star.
photo: Magic Box Slovakia
The Grudge (Nenávisť) - Horror by Takashi Shimizu. The incredibly strange and creepy Japanese horror series Ju-on (The Grudge) gets the Hollywood treatment, courtesy of producer Sam Raimi, the director of the Spiderman movies and the Evil Dead trilogy. Fortunately, in an atypical Hollywood move, the original director made the English-language remake, which should insure that this movie is scarier and stranger than almost anything else currently coming out of the mainstream. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Karen, an American student in Japan who stumbles upon a curse that was born when the inhabitants of a house all died while full of rage. Once awoken, the curse gains power and encompasses all who come into contact with it - that is unless Karen can somehow break herself free.
photo: Tatrafilm
Hide and Seek (Hra na schovávačku) - Thriller by John Polson. In what appears to be further evidence of his steadily downward trajectory, Robert De Niro stars in this psychological thriller about a man who must cope with his wife's suicide and his daughter's subsequent slide into the supernatural. Hollywood's latest ubiquitous child star, Dakota Fanning, stars as the daughter, who begins communicating with an imaginary friend, Charlie, after her mother's tragic death. But Charlie is no ordinary imaginary friend: He displays dark and violent tendencies and, as it turns out, might not be so imaginary after all. Famke Jannsen, Elisabeth Shue, Amy Irving, and Dylan Baker also star.
Prepared by Jonathan Knapp
