The New York Times

May 11, 2003

July Releases

By ANITA GATES

Dates are subject to change.

July 2

LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE AND BLONDE There's a new director and a new screenwriter, so how much repeat joy can fans of the original "Legally Blonde" hope for? At least Reese Witherspoon is back, as the eternally optimistic, deceptively ditzy young lawyer Elle Woods, Harvard Law, class of 2001. This time around, Elle is furious on behalf of her beloved Chihuahua, Bruiser, and goes to Washington to stand up for pets' rights. Luke Wilson is back as Elle's fiancé and the priceless Jennifer Coolidge as the friendly neighborhood manicurist. Bob Newhart and Sally Field have joined the cast, which is promising. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, who did the witty "Kissing Jessica Stein," directed.

SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS The big summer animated adventure from DreamWorks. Sinbad (the voice of Brad Pitt), the dashing pirate of legend, is a man of action and confidence ("I've got things to do, places to go, stuff to steal"). He teams up — reluctantly at first — with Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who knows how to steer a ship with the best of them, and they battle the flirtatious goddess of chaos (Michelle Pfeiffer). Proteus (Joseph Fiennes) plays Sinbad's friendly rival. Directed by Tim Johnson and Patrick Gilmore.

SWIMMING POOL François Ozon's first English-language film. A British mystery writer (Charlotte Rampling) gets an offer she can't refuse from her publisher (Charles Dance). Take my beautiful house in the south of France, he says, and see what inspires you. The writer accepts, and all goes smoothly until the publisher's sexy, reckless daughter (Ludivine Sagnier, who was in Mr. Ozon's "Water Drops on Burning Rocks") shows up. Mr. Ozon wrote the screenplay with Emmanuèlle Bernheim, who also collaborated with him on "Under the Sand," which starred Ms. Rampling.

TAKING SIDES When Hitler took power in Germany, Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgard), a noted conductor, didn't leave. So now he must face the American Denazification Committee. Harvey Keitel stars as a man who believes there is no doubt that he is punishing evil. Istvan Szabo directed. The screenplay is by Ronald Harwood, who adapted "The Pianist" for the screen.

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES He vowed he'd be back, and he is. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to save the world from apocalypse again. Earth's future hero, John Connor (Nick Stahl), is 18 now, and there's a new killer cyborg (Kristanna Loken) from the future in his future. Directed by Jonathan Mostow.

July 4

CONFUSION OF GENDERS ("La Confusion des Genres") A deadpan French sex comedy. Pascal Greggory stars as Alain, a lawyer who says he's bisexual but can't really decide. The objects of his affection include his own steady girlfriend, a female colleague, the colleague's brother, a prison-bound male client and the client's girlfriend. Ilan Duran Cohen directed.

July 9

MADAME SATA The title character is a bandit, transvestite, brothel cook, street fighter, drag performer and father of seven. Set in the underworld of Rio de Janeiro in the 1930's, this is the story of a real man, João Francisco dos Santos (1900-76), played by Lázaro Ramos. Karim Ainouz directed.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow, a pirate riding high until his archrival Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) steals his ship and kidnaps the governor's beautiful daughter (Keira Knightley). The daughter has a fiancé and a childhood friend who help out in her rescue. There is only one complication: little do most of them know that Barbossa and his entire crew are under a curse that has left them among the undead (sometimes they turn into living skeletons). Based on a theme-park ride. With Jonathan Pryce, Orlando Bloom and Jack Davenport. Directed by Gore Verbinski, who dealt with the macabre in "The Ring."

July 11

THE EMBALMER ("L'Imbalsamatore") Think of Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux) as a short, middle-aged, Italian Norman Bates. He's a lonely, unattractive taxidermist who becomes fascinated by a good-looking young man and hires him as his assistant. The obsession seems to work for everybody until the young man meets a young woman; Peppino is just the tiniest bit jealous. Matteo Garrone directed.

THE HOLY LAND In Jerusalem, a rabbi advises a rabbinical student to relieve his sexual frustration by going to a prostitute in Tel Aviv. He does, and he falls in love with her, and before you know it, he's taken a job as a bartender in a dive where Arabs and Jews drink side by side. With Oren Rehany and Tchelet Semel. A drama written and directed by Eitan Gorlin and filmed entirely in Israel.

THE HOUSEKEEPER ("Une Femme de Ménage") The latest from Claude Berri, who directed "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring." It's a romantic comedy-drama about a 50-ish sound engineer whose wife has left him. He allows his life and his apartment to fall apart but finally hires a young cleaning woman, who may be his salvation in more ways than dusting. Jean-Pierre Bacri, Catherine Breillat and Émilie Dequenne star.

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE In 1930's England, the happily bohemian Mortmains live in a crumbling old castle, hoping Dad (Bill Nighy) will write another best-selling novel soon. When two American brothers (Henry Thomas and Marc Blucas) inherit the place, the Montmains envision two benefits in one — financial security and rich husbands for their daughters (Romola Garai and Rose Byrne). It's a romantic drama based on a 1948 novel by Dodie Smith, who also wrote "101 Dalmatians." Directed by Tim Fywell.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN You say you need a few good men? Consider Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Dorian Gray, the Invisible Man, an American Secret Service agent and the one-man team of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There is also one extraordinary gentlewoman: Mina Harker (Dracula's beloved). This is yet another movie about comic book characters; these exist in some alternative Victorian universe in which they all would have been around at the same time. Their mission? To bring down a villain who wants to rule the world. The cast includes Sean Connery (Quatermain), Stuart Townsend, Jason Flemyng, Peta Wilson and Naseeruddin Shah. Directed by Stephen Norrington.

NORTHFORK In the 1950's, a small Montana town is about to be flooded to make room for a new dam. And that's going to disrupt a lot of people's lives. Enter the evacuation committee. Nick Nolte, James Woods, Daryl Hannah, Kyle MacLachlan, Claire Forlani and Peter Coyote star. From the identical twin brothers who did "Twin Falls Idaho": Michael Polish directed; he and Mark Polish wrote.

SEPTEMBER 11 Ken Loach, Sean Penn, Claude Lelouch, Shohei Imamura, Mira Nair, Youssef Chahine and Amos Gitai are among the 11 international filmmakers who contributed short films to this work about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Each short is 11 minutes 9 seconds, plus one frame, long (based on the European date format: 11-09-01).

July 16

GARAGE DAYS A musical comedy about blackmail, ambition and brute force. Alex Proyas ("The Crow") directed this portrait of the members of an Australian garage band who have decided they'll do anything to succeed.

July 18

BAD BOYS II Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as Mike and Marcus, those hip narcotics detectives, this time investigating ecstasy traffic in Miami. Mike is also very interested in Marcus's sister (Gabrielle Union). Why a sequel now, eight years after the original "Bad Boys"? Maybe Michael Bay, the director, just needed a self-esteem boost after "Pearl Harbor."

HOW TO DEAL How is a teenage girl supposed to believe in true love when her parents are divorcing? If you're Halley Martin (Mandy Moore), you become a teenage cynic, until a really cute new guy (Trent Ford) comes along. Neena Beber wrote the screenplay. Directed by Clare Kilner, whose "Janice Beard" was a comedy about a Scottish office temp with an agoraphobic mother.

JOHNNY ENGLISH A spy spoof starring Rowan Atkinson, a k a Mr. Bean. The villain he's after — with James Bondish fast cars and high-tech gadgets — is a Frenchman, Pierre Sauvage (John Malkovich), who has stolen the crown jewels and wants the throne. Natalie Imbruglia plays a double agent who is also Johnny's love interest. Directed by Peter Howitt.

THE MAGDALENE SISTERS It's shocking that institutions like the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland existed at all. It's doubly shocking to know for how long (the last one closed in 1996). The convent-run laundries were the home of young "fallen women" (pregnant, deflowered or just hard to handle), who were handed over to the Roman Catholic Church and given life sentences as slaves at hard labor. Peter Mullan has written and directed a semifictional portrait of the experience, focusing on four young women sentenced to Magdalene in the 1960's. The film won the Golden Lion, the best-picture award, at the Venice Film Festival. The cast includes Dorothy Duffy, Anne-Marie Duff and Nora-Jane Noone.

July 25

AUTUMN SPRING He's an old man and he's going to die, so why not have a grand old time? That's the theory of Vlastimil Brodsky's character, who promptly makes reservations at the most expensive restaurants in town, pretends to be a subway ticket-taker just for fun and poses as a rich opera conductor house hunting in the mansion price range. His wife, who is busy saving up for their funeral expenses, endures it all bravely — until he fakes his own death. When this Czech film, directed by Vladimir Michalek, was shown at the New Directors/New Films series, Stephen Holden described it as one of Brodsky's "richest roles." Brodsky died last year at 81.

BOYS LIFE 4: FOUR PLAY This series of gay short films, which began in 1995, continues. The new collection includes "Bumping Heads" by Brian Sloan, who wrote and directed the film "I Think I Do," and "This Car Up" by Eric Mueller.

BUFFALO SOLDIERS A little military satire for troubled times. Ray Elwood, the protagonist of Robert O'Connor's 1993 novel, has been compared to Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." Ray (Joaquin Phoenix) is on an American Army base in West Germany, it's 1989, and the Berlin Wall is going to fall any minute now. Peace is pretty boring, so he spends his spare time running a drug operation and sleeping with the wife (Elizabeth McGovern) of his superior (Ed Harris). Then his new sergeant (Scott Glenn) cracks down, and Ray is forced to take drastic measures: going after the man's daughter (Anna Paquin, who is 20 now). Gregor Jordan directed.

CAMP Some youngsters go to summer camp for the tennis or crafts, and others go to star in "Equus" or sing Sondheim. In Todd Graff's film, the misfit campers may be dateless or fat or acne-ridden in real life, but at Camp Ovation it's about their talent. Mr. Graff went to a performing-arts camp much like this one in real life; his fellow campers included Jennifer Jason Leigh and Robert Downey Jr.

CATCH THAT KID Clever teenagers doing amazing things à la "Mission: Impossible" or "Ocean's Eleven." Kristen Stewart stars in this remake of a Danish film, "Klatretosen," in which the heroine's father needs very expensive surgery. The only thing she can think of to do is rob a bank, with her friends' help. Now all they have to do is get past the high-tech security. The cast also includes Jennifer Beals, Sam Robards and James LeGros. Bart Freundlich ("The Myth of Fingerprints") directs his first big-studio picture.

LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE Angelina Jolie's second outing as the video-game heroine, this time searching for the title site. She'll travel to Hong Kong, Kenya, Greece and Wales. There are horses, motorcycles and jet skis. With Gerard Butler and Noah Taylor. Directed by Jan De Bont, who earned his action credentials with "Speed."

MASKED AND ANONYMOUS Bob Dylan plays Jack Fate, a singer whose manager, Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman), busts him out of prison to get his career going again. This is an ensemble drama with Jessica Lange, Penélope Cruz, Jeff Bridges and Luke Wilson. Directed by Larry Charles, who has done some directing on the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" but is not to be confused with Larry David.

MONDAYS IN THE SUN ("Los Lunes al Sol") Javier Bardem in a comic drama about an often ignored constituency: the unemployed. Fernando León de Aranda, the writer and director, says it's about "a group of men who walk" their city's "hilly streets every day, looking for life's emergency exits." The film focuses on six friends trying to make ends meet in a depressed coastal city in Spain where the shipyard has closed, leaving rampant joblessness.

SEABISCUIT Between "Spider-Man" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" (scheduled for 2004), Tobey Maguire plays a talented but not superhuman jockey in the story of the racehorse who became America's Depression-era sweetheart — alongside Shirley Temple, one presumes. The colt represented the original down-and-out guy who makes it big. Chris Cooper plays the trainer and Jeff Bridges the businessman-owner. Written and directed by Gary Ross, who directed "Pleasantville" and wrote "Big."

SPY KIDS 3: GAME OVER They're back and they're virtual. Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) are still carrying on the family business, making their spy parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) so proud. They're up against a new villain, the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone), who wants to rule the world's youth. (Tell him to take a job at WB.) In the course of things, the kids enter a virtual-reality video game, and yes, special 3-D viewing glasses will be required. Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who did the first two.  

Compiled with the assistance of SUZANNE O'CONNOR.


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