Anna Paquin

Prolific director Bryan Singer takes a turn towards horror as the producer of this Halloween shocker directed by X2 and Superman Returns screenwriter Mike Dougherty. With four interwoven tales concerning a high-school principal who moonlights as a vicious serial killer, a college-age virgin who's saving herself for that special someone, a woman whose hatred of Halloween is only exceeded by her husband's love of the mischievous holiday, and a callous group of teens who carry out an unforgivably cruel prank, this fall frightener mixes Tarantino-style storytelling with the kind of chills that can only occur on the darkest day of the year. Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker, and Leslie Bibb all star in a Halloween treat that's sure to deliver a few nasty tricks. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Director Yves Simoneau explores the plight of the American Indian in the later half of the 19th century in this docudrama exploring the effects of westward expansion and based on the book by Dee Brown. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The explosive X-Men motion picture trilogy officially draws to a close with this release that finds Rush Hour director Brett Ratner stepping in for Bryan Singer to tell the tale of a newly discovered mutant "cure," and the polarizing effect it has on mutant/man relations. With the pressure on mutants to give up their powers and pledge alliance with the human race reaching a critical turning point, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) urges tolerance and understanding as his nemesis Magneto (Ian McKellen) gathers a powerful resistance in preparation for the ultimate war against humankind. Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, and James Marsden return to reprise the roles they played in the previous two X-Men films, with Kelsey Grammer and Vinnie Jones joining the cast as Beast and Juggernaut respectively. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two boys learn the hard way about how a marriage falls apart in this independent comedy drama. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is a novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline as he spends more time teaching and less time writing. His wife, Joan (Laura Linney), meanwhile, has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan's two sons -- 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) -- are told that their parents are separating, with Bernard renting a house on the other side of their Park Slope, Brooklyn, neighborhood. As the parents set up a schedule for spending time with their children, Walt and Jesse can hardly imagine that things could get more combative between their folks, but they do, as Joan begins dating Ivan (William Baldwin), Frank's tennis instructor, and Bernard starts sharing the house with Lili (Anna Paquin), one of his students. Meanwhile, the two boys begin taking sides in the battle between their parents, with Walt taking after his father and Frank siding with his mom. Based on writer/director Noah Baumbach's own childhood experiences with his parents' divorce, The Squid and the Whale won prizes for writing and direction at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Katsuhiro Otomo, director of the groundbreaking anime feature Akira (1988), returns with this visually striking fusion of the past and the future. It's the Industrial Age in England, reimagined, and various and sundry inventors and scientists are arriving in Britain to hawk their products while capitalism rears its ugly head. A gadget-happy British lad named Ray (voice of Anna Paquin) receives a mysterious package from his grandfather Lloyd Steam (Patrick Stewart) -- a tiny ball that turns out to be an engine toting immense power. As it happens, several of these little balls run the O'Hara pavilion, a massive, mobile fortress. Ray later discovers that his dad and grandfather are located inside of the pavilion; his dad, Eddie, has become mesmerized by O'Hara and subject to their whims, while Lloyd suspects that O'Hara may want to use the balls for nefarious purposes, and tries to put a definitive end to those plans. Indeed, the O'Hara people soon take over the Great Exhibition and turn it into a veritable circus for weapons dealers. Meanwhile, Ray starts to develop feelings for a young girl named Scarlett O'Hara. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A man has one day to put his life in order before a long stretch in prison in this drama directed by Spike Lee. Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is a man who came from a working class family in New York. Monty's best friends Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Slaughtery (Barry Pepper) went on to distinguished careers as, respectively, a high school teacher and a bonds trader, but Monty took a different path and began dealing drugs. While Monty's trade has made him plenty of money, it hasn't brought him much respect from his family and friends, and while Jacob and Slaughtery have stayed in touch, Monty's lifestyle has led them to keep their distance. One night, Monty is relaxing at home with his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson) when the police show up; Monty is arrested, and after a trial he's sentenced to seven years in prison. On his last day of freedom before he goes to jail, Monty tries to make amends with his father (Brian Cox) and goes out on the town with Jacob and Slaughtery. With both of his friends facing emotional crises of their own, Monty finds himself wondering where his life took a wrong turn and if there's any way left to redeem himself. Along the way, Monty begins to suspect that Naturelle may have turned him in, and he has to deal with Kostya Novotny (Tony Siragusa), an ill-tempered drug supplier who has unfinished business with him. 25th Hour was scripted by David Benioff, who adapted the story from his novel of the same name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Australian director Gregor Jordan makes his sophomore effort with this tale about crooked U.S. soldiers based in Germany during the waning days of the cold war. Special Fourth Class soldier Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) guards against the Soviets while on duty, and rips off the U.S. military while off duty. Handsome, calculating, and thoroughly amoral, Elwood runs a profitable black-market business that operates just below the official radar. He and his associates make drugs to sell to his fellow GIs; steal Army supplies, selling them to a German connection; and a host of other dirty deeds. One day, he and his gang uncover some loot that will land them some real money -- high-tech military weaponry. As they try to quietly offload the stuff, the new sergeant, Robert K. Lee (Scott Glenn), catches on to Elwood's nefarious deeds and sets out to put him out of businesses. Elwood, in turn, catches on to the fact that Lee has a very attractive daughter (Anna Paquin) and sets out to bed her. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Writer and director Cameron Crowe's experiences as a teenage rock journalist -- he was a regular contributor to Rolling Stone while still in high school -- inspired this coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old boy hitting the road with an up-and-coming rock band in the early 1970s. Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand) is a bright, loving, but strict single parent whose distrust of rock music and fears about drug use have helped to drive a wedge between herself and her two children, Anita (Zooey Deschanel) and William (Patrick Fugit). Anita rebels by dropping out of school and becoming a stewardess, but William makes something of his love of rock & roll by writing album reviews for a local underground newspaper. William's work attracts the attention of Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), editor of renegade rock magazine Creem, who takes William under his wing and gives him his first professional writing assignment -- covering a Black Sabbath concert. While William is unable to score an interview with the headliners, the opening act, Stillwater, are more than happy to chat with a reporter, even if he's still too young to drive, and William's piece on the group in Creem gains him a new admirer in Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen), an editor at Rolling Stone. Torres offers William an assignment for a 3,000-word cover story on Stillwater, and over the objections of his mother (whose parting words are "Don't use drugs!"), and after some stern advice from Bangs (who says under no circumstances should he become friends with a band he's covering), Williams joins Stillwater on tour, where he becomes friendly with guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). William also becomes enamored of Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a groupie traveling with the band who is no older than William, but is deeply involved with Russell. Lester Bangs and Ben Fong-Torres, incidentally, were real-life rock writers Crowe worked with closely during his days as a journalist. Almost Famous' original score was composed by Nancy Wilson of Heart (who is also Crowe's wife).
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The personal turning points of a family in crisis are portrayed against the backdrop of one of America's most tumultuous summers in this drama. In 1969, Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane) is spending the summer at a resort in the Catskills. Married to TV repairman Marty (Liev Schreiber) and the mother of two children, respectably middle-class Pearl feels trapped by domestic life and inwardly lusts after a traveling salesman named Walker (Viggo Mortensen). When Marty is called back to the city one weekend, Pearl impulsively arranges to meet Walker at a music festival going on in nearby Bethel, New York -- The Woodstock Music and Art Fair. However, Pearl doesn't realize that her teenage daughter Alison (Anna Paquin) has secret plans of her own, and when mother and daughter meet in the midst of hippiedoms's most celebrated moment, both have a lot of explaining to do, to each other and to Marty. A Walk On The Moon was produced in part by Dustin Hoffman, and premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

If Hollywood can shoehorn William Shakespeare into the teen-movie treatment with Romeo and Juliet, and Jane Austen with Clueless (from her novel, Emma), why not George Bernard Shaw? While his Pygmalion has been staged and filmed endless times, most famously as the musical My Fair Lady, here Shaw goes to high school. This time around, a Los Angeles' school's most popular guy Zack (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) loses his girlfriend Taylor (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) to television star Brock Hudson (Scream's Matthew Lillard). Zack then vows to his friends that he can take any girl in school and turn her into the prom queen. With five weeks until the prom, his friends pick weird, art nerd Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook). Zack predictably gets more than he bargained for as he falls in love with his "creation." Eldon Hudson and Kieran Culkin, stars of The Mighty, play Laney's best friend and little brother, respectively. Robert Iscove, director of television's Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, makes his big-screen debut. ~ Chris Gore, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV adaptation of Carson McCullers story features Anna Paquin as Frankie Addams, a 12-year-old tomboy growing up in the deep South in the mid-1940s. Frankie doesn't get along well with most children her age, and she prefers to spend her time with Berenice Brown (Alfre Woodard), the family's housekeeper, and her younger cousin John Henry. However, when Frankie learns that her older sister is getting married -- and that her family may be pulling up stakes and moving away -- she's forced to leave her immaturity behind and, with Berenice's help, begin making her first steps into adulthood. This version of The Member of the Wedding also stars Joanne Pankow and Pat Hingle. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Inspired by a true story, Fly Away Home is a family drama about Amy Alden (Anna Paquin), a 13-year-old girl who, after the tragic death of her mother, is sent to live with her father Thomas (Jeff Daniels), a sculptor. Amy misses her mother and has never enjoyed a very warm relationship with her father, so the first few months in her new home are very difficult for her. However, one day Amy finds a nest full of eggs, which was tossed away by land developers clearing a wooded area. Amy brings the eggs home and builds a makeshift incubator; a few weeks later, a flock of tiny Canadian Geese are hatched. While caring for her new pets makes Amy happier, a problem soon presents itself -- young geese "imprint" on the first creature they see after hatching and follow it, as if it's their mother. Without a mother to show them how to fly south for the winter, how will they learn normal migratory patterns? Thomas comes up with a solution to the problem: as a hobby, he flies Ultralights, lightweight aircraft that look like gliders with engines. If he puts Amy in an Ultralight and has her fly the migratory route to the South, perhaps the birds will follow her and learn the route their mother would normally teach them. Amy's adventures help her learn about independence as she tries to teach it to the birds, bringing her closer to her father. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide