Til Schweiger Movies

Much of the dialog in this very funny German film was taken directly from the two gay comic books by underground cartoonist Ralf Koenig on which the movie was based. Though the comics were written from a gay perspective, the film is slanted towards heterosexual couples. It tells the story of Axel, a handsome hunk with a taste for cheating on his girl friend Doro. When she throws him out, he ends up staying with his gay friend Norbert who is terribly attracted to Axel. Norbert is too shy to act upon his desire, and so, suffers in silence. Doro, upon visiting the two, becomes suspicious and wonders if Axel is also gay. Her suspicions about the naive Axel do not abate, even after her "shot-gun" wedding to him. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Kristy is confused about her sexuality. She wonders: is she a lesbian or is she really a man trapped in a female form? This comedy drama centers upon her search to learn the truth. Her friends, most of whom who live on society's fringe, like herself are little help. Her transvestite roommate, spends most of his time rolling down Santa Monica Boulevard in his wheelchair hustling tricks. While Kristy tries to decide whether or not she undergo a sex-change, she also must cope with her straight boyfriend who refuses to admit that Kristy has a problem. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this German comedy, a pair of convicts attempt to exploit a new rehab program that has inmates paired with female chaperones who escort them outside the prisons one weekend per month in the hopes that the feminine influence will imbue the criminals with good, loving, and more socially acceptable qualities. The two cons try hard to get into the program with the plan of robbing a bank. They succeed in the former, but their robbery plans are quickly derailed and they get in even bigger trouble. They also begin falling in love with their lovely escorts. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A remake of the highly-regarded 1958 film Das Maedchen Rosemarie (released as Rosemary in the U.S.), this fact-based drama follows the rise and fall of a German beauty who went from ex-convict to courtesan of some of Germany's most powerful men to the victim of an unsolved murder. The story begins in 1952 as Rosemarie sleeps her way into an early parole from a detention center. Newly freed, she is sent to a foster home where two years later, the buxom blonde runs away to Frankfurt where she starts living with Nadler, a charming small-time crook. Two years after that, Rosemarie is selling her body in a sleazy bar. One day she brings home a wealthy businessman who agrees to become her sugar daddy. As a result, Rosemarie leaves Nadler. The arrangement works out well, and she continues to entertain important clients. Her undoing comes in the form of a wealthy Frenchman who makes her an enticing, but ultimately dangerous offer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Music video and TV commercials director Antoine Fuqua made his feature directorial debut with this action thriller starring Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat. Chinese immigrant John Lee (Yun-Fat) has a violent past as a professional killer. It brings him only remorse, but it makes him the ideal assassin. In exchange for his family's safety, Lee is forced to take a job with a powerful underworld figure, Asian crime kingpin Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang), who wants Lee to settle a deadly vendetta against police detective Stan Zedlov (Michael Rooker) by killing Zedlov's seven-year-old son. At the last minute, with the boy in his sights, Lee chooses to face Wei's vengeance rather than go through with the killing. In addition to making Lee a target, the decision also endangers his mother and sister back in Shanghai. Planning a return to China, he visits document forger Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) to get a phony passport, but they are interrupted by Wei's army of killers, and a lengthy chase and gun battle is set in motion.

Director Fuqua stressed to his team that the aim was to design a "Taxi Driver for the 1990s," with production beginning February 10, 1997 in downtown Los Angeles, and the first shoot at the historic Mayan Theater, refurbished into the trendy nightclub for the film's stylish opening scene with hundreds of extras carousing while Lee guns down Romero (Carlos Leon) at close range. The eight-story, nearly condemned Giant Penny building in the heart of L.A. served as locations for a police station interior, a hotel room, and Meg Coburn's office, and a chaotic gunfight was filmed amid the spray, brushes, and hoses of Joe's Car Wash in LA. The art department transformed one area into a Chinatown-like streetscape of damp, narrow alleys, and blinking red neon lights, site of a night filming where Yun-Fat shot off 546 rounds with two guns, one in each hand, while the repetitive action left his hands blistered and shaking. More gunplay was at a video arcade replicated at the original Lawry's center just north of downtown L.A., and Lee's tranquil Buddhist temple was fashioned under this same roof. In addition to physical training, Mira Sorvino, who had never handled a gun prior to this film, took weapons training to prepare for her role. Sorvino majored in Asian studies at Harvard, speaks Mandarin, and lived for eight months (1988-89) in Beijing, where she studied Chinese, taught English, and saw Chinese films, including Hong Kong action films. She felt The Replacement Killers brought her a step closer to her goal of making a film in Mandarin and working with a Chinese director. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

What's it like being the only punk rockers in the biggest Mormon community in the world? Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and Heroin Bob (Michael Goorjian) provide the answer to this and other questions in SLC Punk. Stevo and Bob (whose name is actually an ironic reference to his fear of needles) are two friends fresh out of college who sport mohawks and blue hair, listen to hardcore and try to live up to their own anarchist ideals while figuring out what to do with their lives. Which wouldn't make them unusual in New York or Los Angeles, but they're fish out of water in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they drink beer, chase women and pick fights with "rednecks" along side a mixed bag of metalheads, hippies, hicks and posers who are fellow outcasts in the most clean-cut community in America. In the midst of all this, Stevo's dad hopes his son will follow in his footsteps and study law at Harvard; while Stevo surprisingly has the grades, he's not sure if he wants to go. Featuring a soundtrack of mid-80's punk from The Ramones, Minor Threat, The Dead Kennedys and others, SLC Punk was chosen as the opening-night feature at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A would-be illusionist tries to create some magic for himself and his friends in this comic road movie. Max (Til Schweiger) is a struggling professional magician who has a great act, once you get past the fact that most of his tricks don't work very well. One day, Max meets Hugo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a thief who boasts all the skill and expertise in his line of work that Max lacks in prestidigitation. Max is convinced he and Hugo would be an unbeatable combination in Las Vegas, so Hugo steals a van and they hit the road for Nevada, after convincing pretty waitress Lydia (Claire Forlani) to tag along as Max's assistant and Hugo's potential significant other. When the trio hits Las Vegas, they encounter Milo (Alan Arkin), a longtime magician and manager who thinks Max has the right stuff to be a success -- until he sees him perform. Magicians was directed by James Merendino, who previously directed the independent cult hit SLC Punk. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for this action-packed drama directed by Renny Harlin and set in the dangerous, high-stakes world of CART auto racing. Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) is an up-and-coming young star of the open-wheel circuit, but he's slipping in the rankings as the championships loom. Under pressure from his promoter brother Demille (Robert Sean Leonard) and wheelchair-bound owner Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), Jimmy is given a mentor -- Joe Tanto (Stallone), a once great CART competitor whose career and marriage to Cathy (Gina Gershon) were destroyed by a tragic accident. Joe must earn the rookie's trust, while attempting a career comeback, dealing with persistent reporter Lucretia Clan (Stacy Edwards), and facing Cathy, who's remarried to rival racing sensation Memo Moreno (Cristian de la Fuente). Meanwhile, Jimmy is stirring up his own romantic trouble by pursuing Sophia (Estella Warren), the girlfriend of top driver Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). Long interested in creating a car racing drama, Stallone penned Driven after abandoning a film biography of real-life Formula One legend Ayrton Senna. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In the 1930s and '40s, the rivalry between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling was one of the greatest in the history of professional boxing. Louis was one of the first African-Americans to win the Heavyweight championship, and he was a great symbol of hope and achievement for blacks before the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, while Schmeling was a German who many Nazi supporters cited as an example of the innate superiority of the Aryan race. However, what few people knew is that despite their rivalry in the ring, between bouts Louis and Schmeling were good friends, and that Schmeling was not only never a member of the Nazi party, but spurned the attention of Adolf Hitler and helped save the lives of several Jews during the Nazi pogroms. Joe and Max is a made-for-cable drama based on the true story of the friendship of Joe Louis (played by Leonard Roberts) and Max Schmeling (Til Schweiger), and Schmeling's secret heroism during World War II. The supporting cast includes Peta Wilson, Richard Roundtree, and Bruce Weitz. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This sequel to the 2001 hit video-game adaptation Lara Croft: Tomb Raider finds Jan de Bont stepping in for director Simon West, helming his first feature since 1999's The Haunting. From a script by first-time scribe Dean Georgaris, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life finds Angelina Jolie once again portraying the titular curvaceous adventurer. But where the first film saw Croft in a race against the Illuminati to acquire an elusive relic that offers control over life and death, this entry in the series follows the heroine as she ventures to an underwater temple in search of the mythological Pandora's Box. Unfortunately, once she secures the legendary artifact, it is promptly stolen by the villainous leader of a Chinese crime syndicate. It is then up to Lara to get the box back before an evil mastermind gets hold of it and uses it to construct a weapon of catastrophic capabilities. Gerard Butler, Djimon Hounsou, and Noah Taylor head up the supporting cast. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

An ambitious attempt to wed the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table with known historical facts of the era, this action adventure drama begins with the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 A.D. as Roman armies flee the British Isles. Arthur (Clive Owen), a heroic knight and devoted Christian, is torn between his desire to travel to Rome to serve his faith and his loyalty to the land of his birth. As England falls into lawlessness, Arthur throws in his lot with a band of knights who hope to restore order to their fair and pleasant land and hopes to win freedom for his comrades, among them Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Galahad (Hugh Dancy), Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen), Gawain (Joel Edgerton), Bors (Ray Winstone), and Dagonet (Ray Stevenson). In time, Arthur and his men join forces with Merlin (Stephen Dillane), a shaman whose band of renegade knights were often pitched in battle against Roman forces. Forming a united front as loyal Englishmen against the invading Saxon armies, Arthur, Merlin, and the brave and beautiful Guinevere (Keira Knightley) are determined to unite a sovereign Britain under one army and one king. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi