In Theatres
Your monthly guide to new releases
By Ingrid Randoja
JUNE 5
THE HANGOVER
It’s not really a Las Vegas bachelor party until you wake up hung over and find a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, a hospital ID bracelet on your wrist and the groom-to-be M.I.A. That’s the scene facing three buddies (Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper) the morning after Doug’s (Justin Bartha) party, and now the guys have to retrace their steps to find out what happened, and locate the groom so he can walk down the aisle later that same day.
LAND OF THE LOST
The original Land of the Lost was a cheesy, ’70s Saturday morning TV show that became must-see viewing for kids. This big-screen adaptation changes the premise from a father and his two kids being stranded in a prehistoric land, to a dopey scientist (Will Ferrell) and two other adults (Anna Friel and Danny McBride) who find themselves thrown back in time.
O’HORTEN
Train conductor Odd Horten (Bard Owe) retires after 40 years on the job. But what does an unmarried man who only cared about his job do after he stops working? This heartfelt Norwegian film takes a comic, sometimes absurd, look at aging, and suggests it’s never too late to find a purpose for living.
THE ENGLISH SURGEON
For the past 15 years British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh has visited the Ukraine to help colleague Igor Kurilets treat patients despite limited resources and outdated equipment. This award-winning documentary, shot over two weeks, examines the sorry state of the Ukrainian health care system and Marsh’s valiant work treating one particular man dying of a brain tumour.
WATERLIFE
Canadian filmmaker Kevin McMahon takes viewers on a trip through the Great Lakes, beginning from their starting place at the mouth of the Nipigon River all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
MY LIFE IN RUINS
Is it a case of going to the well once too often, or capitalizing on your assets? My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s Nia Vardalos stars as Georgia, a depressed Greek-American who moves to Greece and becomes a tour guide. Her Tilley hat-wearing clients aren’t exactly romantic candidates, but what about the sexy bus driver Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis)?
JUNE 12
DEPARTURES
Winner of 2008’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, this Japanese drama finds an out-of-work cellist returning to his hometown and taking a job in a funeral parlour, where he learns the art of prepping corpses for burial.
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Imagine That
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IMAGINE THAT
Parents hear all about their kids’ imaginary friends (who it seems are always to blame when something gets broken), but Evan’s (Eddie Murphy) daughter Olivia’s (Yara Shahidi)
see-through pals are special, they’re plugged into the business world
and offer Evan career-building tips. It’s up to Evan to keep Olivia
happy and interested in her friends, or risk losing his invisible
corporate spies.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3
A grimy, down-and-out New York was the real star of the original
1974 thriller about a gang of criminals who hold a subway car and its
passengers for ransom. In the remake, N.Y.C. still provides the
setting, but the attraction is really actors John Travolta, playing the gang leader Ryder, and Denzel Washington
as the subway dispatcher Walter Garber. Garber uses his knowledge of
the underground tracks and tunnels as a weapon against the
well-organized criminals.
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AWAY WE GO
Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes shakes off his romantic despair with this much more optimistic love story starring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski as an unconventional couple who discover they’re going to have a baby so hit the road to visit friends and family in the hopes of finding the perfect place to settle down and raise their kid. This film was included in a pilot project looking at eco-friendly filmmaking. So, for example, craft services purchased local and organic food and used ceramic dishes instead of plastic, all location vehicles and generators ran on biodiesel fuels and the entire cast and crew was given reusable aluminum water bottles.
JUNE 19
THE PROPOSAL
It’s the rom-com, XY chromosome version of The Devil Wears Prada, with Ryan Reynolds playing Andrew, the harried assistant to shrewish boss Margaret (Sandra Bullock). When the Canadian Margaret loses her work visa, she convinces Andrew to marry her, and together they head up to Andrew’s Alaskan home to meet his family and say their “I dos”.
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Year One
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YEAR ONE
Judd Apatow produces and Harold Ramis directs this Biblical-era comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera
as two lazy hunter-gatherers who are tossed out of their village and
forced to survive in the ancient world. Along the way they meet various
Biblical figures, including Adam (Ramis), Abraham (Hank Azaria) and his doomed son Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
SURVEILLANCE
Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David Lynch) directs her first film since her 1993 debut debacle Boxing Helena. This gruesome thriller (shot outside Regina, Saskatchewan) focuses on three people — a cop (French Stewart), a junkie (Pell James) and a little girl (Ryan Simpkins) — who all witnessed a series of murders along a lonely stretch of highway, but each of them tells FBI agents (Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman) a different version of what went down.
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JUNE 24
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox return in this Transformers
sequel that’s being touted as bigger, better and a lot louder than the
first film. The war between the Decepticons and Autobots heats up as
Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) discovers the secret origins of the huge robots,
a secret the nasty Decepticon ’bots will do anything to learn.
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Whatever Works
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JUNE 26
WHATEVER WORKS
After spending five years working in Europe, Woody Allen returns to the streets of New York to direct this May-December romance (no, really?) about a misanthropic physicist (Larry David) who marries a pretty young thing (Evan Rachel Wood) from Tennessee. Sparks fly when her mom (Patricia Clarkson) and dad (Ed Begley Jr.) come north to meet their son-in-law.
MY SISTER’S KEEPER
Nick Cassavetes directs this tearjerker based on Jodi Picoult’s best-seller about Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin), a girl who hires a high-profile lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue her parents over the rights to her own body, since she was conceived by her parents (Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric) to act as donor material for her cancer-stricken sister (Sofia Vassilieva).
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SPECIAL EVENTS ON THE BIG SCREEN
WWE-PAY-PER-VIEW
Extreme Rules
Sun., June 7, 8 p.m. ET
PHEDRE
Helen Mirren stars in this production of the Jean Racine tragedy mounted by the National Theatre U.K.
Thurs., June 25, 7 p.m. local time
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA
The Audition
A feature film documenting the final week of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
Live: Sat., June 6, 1 p.m. ET
Encore: Sat., June 15, 7 p.m. local time