JANUARY 2005

WHITE NOISE: Michael Keaton, Deborah Kara Unger, Chandra West, Ian McNeice, Sarah Strange, Nicholas Elia, Mike Dopud, Marsha Regis, Brad Sihvon, Mitchell Kosterman, L. Harvey Gold, Amber Rothwell (Directed by Geoffrey Sax; Written by Niall Johnson; Universal) A poor sap whose wife has been murdered is able to stay in touch with her thanks to the white noise coming through his trusty, if mysterious, radio. Now don’t pretend you don’t know what white noise is. If it were some unknown thing, no sane movie company would allow it to be used as the title of its flick. Now Playing

COACH CARTER: Samuel L. Jackson, Rob Brown, Robert Ri’chard, Rick Gonzalez, Nana Gbewonyo, Antwon Tanner, Debbi Morgan, Ashanti, Denise Dowse (Directed by Thomas Carter; Written by Mark Schwahn and John Gatins; Paramount) A tough, big-on-discipline high school basketball coach turns a bunch of unruly students into players to be proud of--though he outrages many of their Northern California neighbors and kinfolk by barring the kids from the gym when their grades take a slide. Based on the true-life story of coach Ken Carter, this upbeat flick slam-dunked its way to the top of the box office on the weekend of 1/14-1/16. Now playing

ELEKTRA: Jennifer Garner, Terence Stamp, Kirsten Prout, Goran Visnjic, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Will Yun Lee, Natassia Malthe (Directed by Rob Bowman; Written by Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman, Raven Metzner; Fox) Critics and just-plain moviegoers were quick to note that the only reason to sit through “Daredevil” was not Ben Affleck’s performance as the preening comic-book-style superhero, but that of Jennifer Garner (the Jen who has replaced the old Jen in Ben’s off-screen life) as scrumptious vixen Elektra. That’s why we now have Garner back--sans Affleck--in the role of Elektra, once again kicking male butt whenever and wherever possible. What’s the word on the flick? Out in Hollywood, they’re determined to prove that movies are worse than ever. Now Playing

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13: Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, Maria Bello, Ja Rule, Drea de Matteo, Matt Craven, Aisha Hinds, Brian Dennehy, Gabriel Byrne (Directed by Jean-Francois Richet; Written by James DeMonaco, Rouge Pictures) Ethan Hawke is a lawman with a bad side who must do his best to keep Laurence Fishburne, a bad guy with a good side, alive in a shambles of a police station one grim, snowy night in falling-to-pieces Detroit. Every savage thug in the vicinity seems determined to silence Fishburne before he can spill incriminating beans about them to the authorities. Back in 1976, writer-director John Carpenter brought a sleazy zest to this pulp material. Let’s see if Frenchman Richet can match his machismo. Now Playing

MONSIEUR N.: Philippe Torreton, Richard E. Grant, Jay Rodan, Elsa Zylberstein, Roschdy Zem, Bruno Putzulu, Stephane Freiss, Frederic Pierrot (Directed by Antoine de Caunes; Written by Rene Manzor; Empire Pictures) After meeting his Waterloo, did Napoleon Bonaparte spend his last days drooping around St. Helena feeling sorry for himself, or did he manage, with the help of his friends, to escape? The fate of history’s most mysterious exile may or may not be revealed in this French film. Philippe Torreton stars as Napoleon, and Elsa Zylberstein plays his not-so-trustworthy mistress. To read about many more new biopics, click here. Now Playing

FEAR X: John Turturro, James Remar, Deborah Kara Unger, Stephen McIntyre, William Allen Young, Eugene M. Davis, Mark Houghton, Jacqueline Ramel (Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn) John Turturro stars as a Wisconsin man whose wife is gunned down by a hit man in the shopping mall where he works as a security guard. Naturally, he becomes obsessed with tracking down the assassin, and his trail leads him to a mysterious Montana cop (James Remar) and the man's troubled wife (Deborah Kara Unger). Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn collaborated on the screenplay with Hubert Selby Jr., author of "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and "Requiem for a Dream." Completed some time ago, this film was scheduled to open in January 2005, but that no longer seems the case. Feeling disappointed? Now Playing

HIDE AND SEEK: Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning, Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue, Amy Irving, Robert John Burke, Dylan Baker, Melissa Leo, Alicia Harding, Josh Flitter, James McCaffrey (Directed by John Polson; Written by Ari Schlossberg; Fox) Doctor Goodman (Robert De Niro) is in a shaken state because his wife has killed herself. That’s the bad news. But the really bad news is that his daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) has struck up an intimate relationship with a (presumably) imaginary creep named Charlie. And then the kid develops some truly monstrous habits. Wonder why Fox didn’t unleash this thunderbolt last month in order to qualify for Oscar consideration. To read Guy Flatley's 1973 interview with Robert De Niro, click here. Now Playing