New Years Movies

Riding the coattails of the resurgent boom in horror films after the success of Halloween, Terror Train features teeth-chattering direction by Roger Spottiswoode and pristine cinematography from John Alcott. The story is the basic slasher film premise, remounted on a moving train. A college fraternity decides to hold a New Year's Eve party on a train. But an uninvited guest, a disturbed ex-fraternity member, decides to take revenge on the partying students by killing them off one by one in increasingly grisly fashion. On board the terror train is horror film perennial Jamie Lee Curtis, along with David Copperfield, and Ben Johnson as Carne the conductor, who tries to calm the women students by saying things like, "Now you young ladies stay up here --it's too dangerous down in that other car." ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Rob Reiner's romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as the title pair. The film opens with the two strangers, both newly graduated from the University of Chicago, share a car trip from Chicago to New York, where they are both going to make their way. During the trip, they discuss aspects of their characters and their lives, eventually deciding it is impossible for men and women to be "just friends." They arrive in New York and go their separate ways. They meet a few years later on an airplane and Harry reveals he is married. They meet again at a bookstore a few years after that where Harry reveals he is now divorced. From that point on, the two form a friendship. Eventually their closeness results in their respective best friends (played by Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby) meeting and falling in love with each other. At a New Year's Eve party Harry and Sally confront the complex tangle of emotions they feel for each other. The soundtrack consists primarily of Harry Connick Jr. crooning standards like "It Had to Be You." ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

British director Suri Kishnamma follows his quiet character study A Man of No Importance (1994) with this raucous feel-good suicide-pact comedy-drama. The film opens with buddies Jake (Andrew Lee Potts) and Steven (Robby Barry) enjoying a little joie de vivre on French ski slopes during a school holiday until a freak avalanche kills everyone in their high school class except, of course, Jake, Steve, and an adult chaperone who remains in a coma throughout the movie. The two cogent survivors return to their coastal community with much tabloid attention. Jake's divorced mother Shelley (Anastasia Hille) is barely able to keep it together with anti-depressants and welfare checks. She leans on Jake, her eldest son, for emotional stability. Steven, on the other hand, loathes his ice queen socialite mother (Jacqueline Bisset) and his anal-retentive politico father. Traumatized in two different ways -- Steven slides into steely cynicism while Jake delves into weepy despondency -- the two agree to a blood pact: they will spend the following year living it up in nihilist glee, after which time they will duly off themselves. As the year of mayhem unfolds -- including robbing banks, torching schools, and eating ice cream in Timbuktu -- their friendship and their fidelity to their pact is questioned. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

London's most frequently eligible bachelor gets some lessons in growing up from a maladroit 12-year-old boy in this third big-screen adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel, directed and co-written by siblings Chris and Paul Weitz of American Pie fame. About a Boy concerns the parallel coming-of-age stories of the thirtysomething Will (Hugh Grant), a layabout "serial nice guy" living a posh, carefree lifestyle off his deceased father's fortune; and the preteen Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), a bright but awkward youth who's tired of his mom Fiona's (Toni Collette) depressed, boyfriend-less state. Their paths collide when Will, deciding that single mothers are the easiest romantic conquests on the dating scene, fabricates a two-year-old son and joins a group called S.P.A.T. (Single Parents Alone Together). Marcus is wise to Will's scheme, however, and through some incessant pestering and blackmail, he contrives for Will to date Fiona. Though Will doesn't hit it off immediately with either Marcus or his mother, he gradually begins to open up to the people around him -- so much so that he attracts the attention of another attractive single mom (Rachel Weisz). A U.S./U.K. co-production of Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Films and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title (the company responsible for the Grant-related Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary), About a Boy was co-written by What's Eating Gilbert Grape creator Peter Hedges. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

New Year's Concert 2004 - Orchestra del Teatro features performances of pieces by some of the legendary composers of all time. The video includes interpretations of works by Rossini, Verdi, and Ponchielli. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The best brawlers in the WWE step into the Elimination Chamber to vie for the WWE Championship, and now fans can take home all the action in this release that details the action blow by bone-breaking blow. John Cena may have had a good run during his eight month reign at the top of the heap, but when Kurt Angle, Carlito, Chris Masters, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Kane set their sights on the glory, an entire year of tension explodes in one unforgiving night in the ring. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi