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May 2005
Summer Preview 2005

Compiled by Wilson Morales
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THE LONGEST YARD
 
Release Date: May 27, 2005
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Director: Peter Segal
Producers: Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, Van Toffler, & David Gale, based on the 1974 comedy
Screenwriter: Sheldon Turner
Cast: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, James Cromwell, Cloris Leachman, Nelly, Brian Bosworth, Nicholas Turturro, Bill Romanowski, Michael Irvin, Eric 'Extreme' Goldberg, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, David Patrick Kelly, Terry Crews.
“The Longest Yard” is the story of pro quarterback Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds), who are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards, Crewe enlists the help of Scarborough to coach the inmates to victory in a football game “fixed” to turn out quite another way.

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MADAGASCAR
 
Release Date: May 27, 2005
Distributor: DreamWorks Pictures
Directors: Eric Darnell and Conrad Vernon
Screenwriters: Mark Burton, Billy Frolick
Cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron "Ali G" Cohen, Cedric "The Entertainer", Gwen Stefani

Synopsis:
Ben Stiller (“Meet the Parents”), Chris Rock (“Chris Rock Never Scared”), David Schwimmer (TV’s “Friends”) and Jada Pinkett Smith (“Collateral”) star as the voices of four zoo animals who hang up when they hear the call of the wild. Alex the Lion (Stiller) is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York’s Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends Marty the Zebra (Rock), Melman the Giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Pinkett Smith) have lived their entire lives in blissful captivity, with regular meals provided and an admiring public to adore them. Not content to leave well enough alone, Marty allows his curiosity to get the better of him and, with the help of some prodigious penguins, makes his escape to explore the world he’s been missing. Alex, Melman and Gloria go after him, but before they can go wild in the streets, they are captured, crated and put on a ship to Africa…to be ultimately set free. When those plotting penguins sabotage the ship, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria find themselves washed ashore on the exotic island of Madagascar. Now, these native New Yorkers have to figure out how to survive in the wild and discover the true meaning of the phrase “It’s a jungle out there.”

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SAVING FACE
 
Release Date: May 27, 2005
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Directors: Alice Wu
Cast: Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, Michelle

Synopsis:
 For 28-year old New Yorker Wilhelmina "Wil" Pang (Michelle Krusiec), life is a juggling act between a promising career as a surgeon and her responsibilities as a dutiful daughter. Like the #7 train she takes to visit her Chinese family on a weekly basis, Wil is perpetually in transit between two worlds. The expectations of the Flushing, Queens society she is from and the desires that alienate her from it have made Wil content to live below the surface -- even if it means playing an inadvertent game of charades with her widowed mother (Joan Chen) and the old world Ma represents. The masquerade is comic even in its pain as Wil tolerates Ma's weekly set ups with eligible Chinese-American boys at the Friday Chinese socials; but it quickly becomes a farce when Ma's mask cracks first. One night, Wil comes home to find Ma on her doorstep - pregnant. Disgraced by the Chinese community, and with nowhere else to go, Ma moves in with her daughter, making it difficult for Wil to nurture a budding relationship with gorgeous dancer Vivian (Lynn Chen). As her carefully compartmentalized worlds collide, Wil is forced to find her mother a husband, placate her girlfriend, and choose between breaking a cycle of keeping up appearances, or risk losing the girl she loves. SAVING FACE is a romantic comedy about a daughter struggling to understand her mother's heart, which ultimately allows her to understand her own. It is the story of unspoken loves, contemporary and cultural taboos, and the journey of two women towards living their lives honestly.

THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS
 
Release Date: June 3, 2005
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Director: Ken Kwapis
Screenwriters: Delia Ephron, Elizabeth Chandler
Cast: Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, Blake Lively, America Ferrara, Jenna Boyd, Bradley Whitford, Nancy Travis, Michael Rady

Synopsis:
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants stars Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrara and Blake Lively as four 16-year-old best friends who are separated for the first time. On a last shopping trip together, the girls find a pair of thrift-shop jeans that fits each of them perfectly and they decide to use these "magic" pants as a way of keeping in touch over the months ahead, each girl wearing the jeans for a week to see what luck they bring her before sending them on to the next. Though miles apart, the four friends still experience life, love and loss together in a summer they'll never forget.

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CINDERELLA MAN
 
Release Date: June 3, 2005
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Ron Howard
Screenwriters: Cliff Hollingsworth, C. Gaby Mitchell, and Akiva Goldsman
Cast: Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Bruce McGill, Paddy Considine

Synopsis:
Crowe stars in the story inspired by the life of legendary athlete Jim Braddock, a once-promising light heavyweight boxer forced into retirement after a string of losses in the ring. As the nation enters the darkest years of the Great Depression, Braddock accepts a string of dead-end jobs to support his wife, Mae (Renée Zellweger), and their children, while never totally abandoning his dream of boxing again. Thanks to a last minute cancellation, Braddock finds himself back in the ring against the second-ranked world contender--and to everyone's amazement, Braddock wins in the third round. Despite being pounds lighter than his opponents and repeated injuries to his hands, Braddock continues to fight against challengers and win. Carrying on his shoulders the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised masses, Braddock, dubbed the "Cinderella Man," faces his toughest challenger in Max Baer (Craig Bierko), the heavyweight champion of the world, renowned for having killed two men in the ring.

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THE LORDS OF DOGTOWN
 
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Director: Catherine Hardwicke :
Screenwriter: Catherine Hardwicke & Stacy Peralta
Cast: Heath Ledger, Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Renner, Eddie Cahill, Shea Whigham

Synopsis:
In Venice, California in the mid '70's, the sport of surfing brought together a group of teenagers from a rough neighborhood. Riding the waves at the Pacific Ocean Park pier, a graveyard of a former amusement park, the boys from "Dogtown" joined the Zephyr skate team (or Z-boys). Known for their aggressive style, awe-inspiring moves and hard street attitude, the Z-Boys spent mornings and afternoons skateboarding. Taking the death-defying moves of surfing and applying them to skateboarding, the Z-Boys became overnight sensations - local legends - and revolutionized the art of skateboarding, transforming youth culture forever.

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HIGH TENSION
 
Release Date: June 3, 2005
Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Philippe Nahon, Cecile de France

Synopsis:
Formerly known as Switchblade Romance, this relentlessly cuts between two plotlines that are destined to collide. A brutish man barrels a rusted delivery van through a cornfield as Alex and Marie get ready for bed in Alex's parents' country house, where the two girls have escaped for the weekend, far from the bustle of Paris. As the girls close their eyes, an intruder is about to turn their innocent dreams into a relentless and bloody nightmare.

5 X 2
 
Release Date: June 10, 2005
Distributor: THINKFilm
Director: Francois Ozon
Screenwriters: Francois Ozon
Cast: Valeria Bruni - Trudeschi, Stephane Freiss, Geraldine Pailhas, Francoise Fabian, Michael Lonsdale

Synopsis:
5x2 is a haunting and realistic evocation of the evanescence of love, and how adult relationships evolve over time. Returning to a more intimate scale following his international smash, SWIMMING POOL, Ozon’s chamber drama is an anatomy of a failed marriage told in reverse chronology, starting with the finalization of the couple1s divorce and concluding, literally, as they walk off into the sunset for their first encounter. Subverting the conventions of cinema romance along with audience expectations of happy endings, Ozon focuses on five key chapters in these two people's lives--including the first blush of sexual attraction, the wedding night, and the birth of their first child--that reveal the inextricable emotional ties between them, at the same time they expose the inevitable seeds of discord.

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THE HONEYMOONERS
 
Release Date: June 10, 2005         
Company: Paramount Pictures
Director:  John Schultz
Producers: Julie Durk, David T. Friendly, and Marc Turtletaub
Screenwriters: Don Rhymer, David Sheffield, and Barry W. Blaustein
Cast: Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, Gabrielle Union, Regina Hall, Eric Stoltz and John Leguizamo

Synopsis:
"The Honeymooners," a feature-length comedy, is the story of two best friends - bus driver Ralph Kramden (Cedric the Entertainer) and sewer worker Ed Norton (Mike Epps) - who hatch a get-rich-quick scheme to get them out of Brooklyn and onto easy street. Standing by their husbands are devoted wives Alice (Gabrielle Union) and Trixie (Regina Hall), who help their guys make ends meet by waitressing at a neighborhood diner.

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MR. AND MRS. SMITH
 
Release Date:  June 10
Director:  Doug Liman
Written by: Simon Kinberg
Producers: Arnon Milchan, Akiva Goldsman, Lucas Foster, Patrick Wachsberger, Eric McLeod
Cast: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Adam Brody, and Kerry WashingtonSynopsis:  
A sexy action adventure.  John and Jane Smith are an ordinary suburban couple with an ordinary, lifeless suburban marriage. But each of them has a secret: They are legendary assassins working for competing organizations. When the truth comes out, John and Jane end up in each other's cross-hairs.

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